Jon Merriex

So... apparently most people didn't get the blatant sarcasm in the first paragraph of my post. I wasn't being serious - hence the obvious contradiction in the paragraph...

My real point is that if you know anything about Paizo then you know they give most of their stuff away for free and offer subscriptions and content upgrades for a premium price. Pathfinder is one of the first PnP games to do F2P so it makes sense that they'd mirror that in their online game.

I LOVE Pathfinder. It is basically D&D 3.75. Paizo did a big "beta" period when they were designing it and you can get the rules FREE on their SRD site: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/

The caveat there is that the campaign settings and other peripheral rules are not available there. So you have to buy them. You can also choose whether to grab the PDF which is cheaper than the printed books and most book purchases come with the PDF for free.

They basically turned the entire genre on its head. I run a pathfinder campaign and I had a number of people who had never played D&D before and because of the way the game is set up, they didn't have to pay anything to get started, but now several of them have purchased books because they enjoy it so much.

@SnarlingWolf Having actually worked in the F2P industry I can say for a fact that Cousins is 100% correct. I personally know about 100 different players from 10 different games who spend more than $500 a month on their favorite F2P game. They are not broke, they are not the rulers or their respective games and they are very aware of what they are doing and feel the investment they make is well worth the fun they receive.

As for his numbers, I've worked on Sword of the New World and Sword 2, War Rock, Global MU Online, R.O.H.A.N. Online and APB: Reloaded. I can say with confidence that those numbers vary widely with the audience. But it is true, the VAST majority (well over 75% in almost every case I've seen) of players in those games have NEVER paid to play the game. But they log in and play every day.

Now as business people, do we actively try to convert those who do not pay? YES, ABSOLUTELY. We know for a fact, the moment you make your first purchase, you will pay us for the rest of your time with the game. We'd be dumb not to try to convert those players who have not yet made a purchase. But we also know that about 25-30% of the players playing the game will NEVER pay us AND without those players the game is no longer fun for the other players. So there is a fine line that has to be drawn between FORCING someone to pay and ensuring you can stay competitive without having to ever pay.

I'll step out as very excited by this development. 99% of all MT haters have never really played a game with MT. And as my beloved writter Sam Clements once said "There are three kinds of lies; Lies, Damn Lies and statistics".

ANYWAY, I think this is a really good thing. Anyone, who knows anything about Paizo knows that they kind of do the free thing with their PnP game, so not doing it with the MMO was something I was curious about. If they do this like Turbine or better yet, the way they've done with the PnP version of the game, I think it can work out very well for them.

And from what they have laid out, it sounds like a solid mix between EVE and LoTRO. I'm down for that!

@c0gnit0 I will agree it is not 100% of the people in EVE. But in my experience it was a high number of the player base I experienced who would clowns. I think around 40-45% sounds about right.

@Transientmind I have to agree. I played EVE for a time (about a year and a half) and found that to be true. Add that to the almost quarterly "DRAMA-COUPS" and most logical people will walk away saying A) This game breeds drama and unethical behavior and/or B) This game's player base is the pit of the human cesspool.

I also agree this guy is just upset he got caught. I say funny things, but NEVER at the expense of others - ESPECIALLY not calling out specific people like that. What he did, I would argue was more than just happenstance. It was a deliberative act to mention the story - in which he basically scammed the player - then go so far as to name the guy AND THEN tell others to encourage him to kill himself. I spend most Saturday's working the Trevor Hotline and it's assholes like this guy who are the real problem with the world.

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!

CAN'T WAIT CAN'T WAIT CAN'T WAIT CAN'T WAIT CAN'T WAIT CAN'T WAIT CAN'T WAIT!!!

I'm just a little excited about this as you can tell...

@(Unverified)

I believe there are changes to those classes specifically targeting what you are talking about in 1.2. I may be wrong though... everything seems to be running together now...

@(Unverified)

This is the most original post ever made on Massively. No one has ever commented on the fact that most MMOs release and get updates later. You must be some kind of MMO savant... idiot savant, but a savant none the less.

WTB Date.