In the old days free mmorpg meant bad quality, but nowadays that doesnt happen so much. Games like Runes of Magic (already in open beta in December) can offer the same resources as paid games...
Others, like Anarchy Online, RF Online and Rose Online were once paid games and now we can play them online free of charge.
In this time of global crisis, which of these two formats will prevail? And how about you? Which one will you choose?
Well, Most Free MMORPG's have a thing in them, What I mean by that, Runescape, pay for that Member thing. Sherwood Dungeon, Pet's. Some Free Ones have those, some don't.
But in my opinion people would like Free ones well, because it's free. 
What about combat arms, that is a good one
Good free game
I've heard a lot of different opinions on this subject I've always generally preferred free mmorpg's just because...hey...they're free. I have played two or three p2p ones and just never really got too much out of it. I think the fact that I was paying to waste my time (even though it was fun) kinda drove me away from it. I play Guild Wars right now which is kinda f2p after you actually buy the game. Games like WoW where you have to pay to play online personally drive me away. Most MMORPG games that you have to pay for I tend to avoid and I end up getting all the free mmorpg games and fall in love with them.
They're free, they usually are fairly decent, and BECAUSE they're free, you can easily pressure your friends into getting the game 
Free MMO's usually aren't completely free, they usually have premium items in the game that gives you an advantage over other users that don't have them. All MMO's are the same, waste of time. Why waste your time grinding, when you can be doing something else. I wish I had the time back I spent on them.
| Quote: |
| Free MMO's usually aren't completely free, they usually have premium items in the game that gives you an advantage over other users that don't have them. |
I second this... Sometimes you end up paying more in free to play MMO than the p2p one.
for example, for p2p, let's say that you need to pay US$6/month, that way, that's the exact amopunt that you must pay in the end.
In f2p, sometimes you end up paying more than US$6/month for item mall (premium items) and such things.
For me, I prefer p2p, so when I really don't have the money, I can't play at all, not like on f2p with premium item, I can play and keep tempted me to take some cash from my bank to "pay".I've played few free MMO and they are OK (knight online, Metin 2, lineage 2) ... now my brother is playing WoW ...
I must say, that paid MMO is better because less cheating. Next thing is, that most of ppl are there to play (because they pay cash for it) ...
But ... everything is people ... if there is no normal ppl on the server then paid or free - doesn't mather ... it will always be crappy gameplay I played CoH for a while, and it's a really great game, but again, it's that concept of paying monthly for a time waster. You feel like you should play it often because you're paying for it, but unless all your friends play it, you're kinda being a loner, y'know?
I agree with what pikokola said however, there are ways to get premium items without spending real money. Mainly exchanging in-game items and money for them. But then that brings up the point that those who are willing to spend real money on free to play games gain an advantage over those who won't.
That said, generally I prefer free to play games over pay to play ones since I kinda think that if I spend money on a game and quit it months later then it's money wasted. And I quit all games eventually, since I usually tire of them. Sure I may return to play for brief periods but it's never enough to make full value of the money paid.
The thing about paying a monthly fee for games, is that you're paying for maintenance. That's right, you're given a service in return for the money you paid for it. Monthly fees usually guarantee frequent patches for months (if not years) to come, active moderation in case of difficulties or bugs, and stable servers.
Well, most of the time anyway.
Free-to-play games usually offer much less of this kind of service because they rely on 'premium' accounts/items/privileges/etc. to get the money flowing. If that is not enough, they will rely on frequent expansion sets which you are required to buy to keep playing. Either that, or they will just cut down on the personell working on the game in question. Resulting in poor customer support, dodgy servers and what not.
Feel free to disagree, but please don't tell me that you're paying just to play the game you already bought. You bought the game, and you need to pay for the service they're offering. Same goes for your telephone. You bought the telephone set, but you need to keep paying your bills to get the benefit from it.
I try to be very careful with online games, because it can get addictive and expensive. I have inactive accounts with CoH, SWG, EQ, EQ2, LOTRO, and WAR. I only have one active at a time, and I usually don't play more than a month.
What it comes down to is cost. $15 a month just seems like a lot of money to pay for a game that you don't really own. In 2-3 months time of online gaming, I could just buy myself an offline game and play it whenever I want to. So for me personally, I pick one online game to play for one month every 3-4 months or so. The one I'm planning to go back to soon, hopefully, is LOTRO. That's one game I really do like.
Fun free MMO - Puzzle Pirates lol but only if you like puzzles 
Fun subscription MMO - World of Warcraft lol But a little expensive...
I tried Guild Wars one time, because it looked cool, but the controls were not as good as World of Warcraft and it just wasn't as fun...
Also I've tried a few free trials for subscription MMO's and all I get is laggy servers lol
So... WoW or PP lol
| Mexican_Ed wrote: |
Well, Most Free MMORPG's have a thing in them, What I mean by that, Runescape, pay for that Member thing. Sherwood Dungeon, Pet's. Some Free Ones have those, some don't.
But in my opinion people would like Free ones well, because it's free. |
Hahaha, oh man I love your icon ^^ Que padre 
More games should be like GuildWars , pay an initial free, and a few more if you like the expansions, and play all you want without having to pay anything more. The fact that WoW charges BOTH for buying the game the first time, plus all the expansions, and have a monthly fee makes me think of them as rather greedy. The maintenance argument is a good one, until you consider how much you actually pay for it.
Oh, and an offtopic reason why I prefer GuildWars over WoW is that WoW is separated into a bunch of server, with no contact between them, where in GuildWars all the player are in the same world.
I don't think there are many good quality free MMORPGs and I mean GRAPHICALLY because frankly, without good graphics, MMORPGs aren't worth it nowadays. 
| _AVG_ wrote: |
| I don't think there are many good quality free MMORPGs and I mean GRAPHICALLY because frankly, without good graphics, MMORPGs aren't worth it nowadays. |
Heh. I wouldn't mind it if someone made a really deep clone of ultima online, or tibia. As long as the MMORPG gave you a lot of freedom, interesting character stats and skills and the ability the actually change the virtual world I couldn't care if it so looked like commander keen.Online games should have the option to where you can create your own private server for your own games OR you can pay to play on an official public server.
In my opinion, if you buy a game I don't think you should be forced to pay more money to play on their server too. You should have the option to play solo, or play LAN with friends or families. Guild Wars has the right idea, and I wish others would do that too.
| Starrfoxx wrote: |
| What it comes down to is cost. $15 a month just seems like a lot of money to pay for a game that you don't really own. In 2-3 months time of online gaming, I could just buy myself an offline game and play it whenever I want to. So for me personally, I pick one online game to play for one month every 3-4 months or so. The one I'm planning to go back to soon, hopefully, is LOTRO. That's one game I really do like. |
Do you really picture yourself playing a game that isn't regularly updated for 3 months? The way you're playing is actually much more expensive since you keep buying new games instead of just sticking with one. You can even buy multiple months at once to get a (albeit small) discount.Free of P2p, it really depends if your with your pals, its just plain boring playing it alone | Flarkis wrote: |
Games like WoW where you have to pay to play online personally drive me away. Most MMORPG games that you have to pay for I tend to avoid and I end up getting all the free mmorpg games and fall in love with them.
They're free, they usually are fairly decent, and BECAUSE they're free, you can easily pressure your friends into getting the game |
or u get the other friends who like paying...P2P and Free MMORPG is steal my time too. My choice is how many time spend on it. I try to limit that way now i select game that not realy need to much time to spend (sometime basic is better, like: http://s2.tanoth.co.uk?kid=Bolneroll ). I go for paid games because everybody is equal. There are these games where you can 'buy' something extra (by sms or something) to get better. Thus, the more you pay, the better you get.
I go for games that require you to pay once a month. By this, everybody is equal.
I myself don't take an mmo that serious that I really want to spend any money on it. Spending money on a good FPS is more important to me. So I'll never pay for an mmo nor I think that the payment really offers more fun.
I rate commercial games like this:
Hours played / Price payed. I've played Unreal Tournament 2004 for about 2000 hours (est.) and I payed 40 for it. But WoW, in order to play more hours, you need to pay more. Which always makes me unhappy in the end.
I think the MMORPGs aren't expensive at all. If you have enough free time time to play with them, it absolutely worth it.
For example i played a lot WoW on original Blizzard server. It was a bit too much after 2 years (about 8 hours avarage per day...), so i stopped it for a while.
Some months later i tried some cracked servers, and it was horrible for me... Full of bugs, almost nothing on AH, and the faster XP system is killing the meaning of the game too.
So its not a question for me, if i want to play MMORPG, i will pay for it (of course it depends on the price too), and i need good quality for that money.
But nowadays i don't have enough time for them, but i hope it will change.
I prefer games where everybody is the same either all pays or none. I don't like games where people buy some stuff with money and than can own people who didn't bought it.
| kirba wrote: |
| I prefer games where everybody is the same either all pays or none. I don't like games where people buy some stuff with money and than can own people who didn't bought it. |
I can only agree with this. If you don't pay to play, you're only playing the demo version - only you're playing it vs. the people with the real thing!
