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Free2Play Open Topic Discussions
linkinxero
Posts: 174Member 
Trainee
Inspired by http://forum.papayaplay.com/index.php?p=/discussion/354496/free2play-open-topic-dicussions
Papaya Play is new - the platform was founded just last year. The team is willing to receive community input to figure out the direction the game should go - and I think that is fantastic.
I would like to hear your thoughts - and hopefully Papaya Play would like to hear them too and would read this post - about what you think is the way to move forward in balancing F2P vs P2P players.
On one end of the spectrum, the term "Pay2Win" comes out where paying provides a large advantage over other players. The F2P players are dissatisfied, and it risks causing them to leave. And without F2P players, the games are less populated, and P2P players start getting bored - the population falls into a downward spiral. And as we can see in Nexon's last days, there are far fewer players.
On the other end, you have a game where there is little incentive to pay because paying doesn't give you enough benefits. And so the company isn't making any money.
So we need to reach a middle ground.
Feel free to brainstorm and submit your own ideas on what you'd like to see. You can even break from the models WarRock has been under in the past - the 30 day premium, direct weapon purchases, chances at winning permanent items, and directly winning permanent items. If you think of other ways that would make money but not make a game Pay2Win for Vertigo, please share. Give your feedback on how you felt about the different ways the previous publishers tried to make money.
I'd like to go over a history on this. I'd like to update it as other players can chime in with their memories and experiences, and correct any mistakes I made. This history is for all players to reflect on to give themselves inspiration on what can be reintroduced, kept, and/or changed. It's also for Vertigo Games who may not know the history of WarRock.
During the K2 (K2Network) days, there were 4 tiers of players based on payment. The Free2Play (F2P), the Bronze Premium, the Silver Premium, and the Gold Premium. Players could see who were in each of these tiers because the Level Badge around their name would change color accordingly (F2P had the basic gray border).
The benefits were as follows (this is incomplete, if anyone has a list of how it was back then, please let me know):
Information below is sourced from Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
Any premium: You could host a room with any map, and you had full access to the weapon's shop (assuming you were of level to buy a weapon). You were allowed to buy premium-exclusive items even if your premium was about to expire (but not too soon; I think 1-3 days was the cutoff?), and use these weapons as a F2P. Some important premium only items are the PX items - I always thought they meant Premium eXclusive, but that may not be true. PX items were things besides guns - flash mines, adrenaline stick, 5th slot, exp bonus, Supermaster, etc. Additionally, the clan system depended on at least the clan master having premium. Back then, the game was so popular that when the servers were nearing capacity, if you were a F2P you may not be able to join the server and had to pick a less populated one, but a premium player was able to access any server they wanted. (Also customer service prioritized premium players.)
Bronze premium ($6): You got a 21,000 dinar bonus and 30 days of bronze premium. There was a 20% EXP bonus for each game while you were premium.
Silver premium ($10): You got a 40,500 dinar bonus and 30 days of silver premium. A 30% EXP bonus was also given to players, and private rooms could be created.
Gold premium ($15): You got a 55,500 dinar bonus, 5th slot for free, and 30 days of gold premium. A 50% exp bonus was included. You could create private rooms and give custom names to rooms.
The game also featured what were called Retails. These were packages that were sold physically at stores and would come with a map book/mini guide to the game, dogtags, and a code to redeem for 30 days of gold premium and an 8th Slot Weapon (which was the only way to get an 8th slot weapon). They came in 6 varieties: The G36C_D retail for Engineers, the AIAW retail for Snipers, the Famas retail for Assaults, the M60 retail for Assaults, the M134 retail for Heavy Troopers, and the M249 retail for Heavy Troopers. (The last one was quite special because M249 was only usable on Assault class otherwise.) The original intention of these retails were to be 30 days only, and they would expire, like any other weapon. However, a glitch in the system caused them to never expire. Out of good will, K2 never removed premium weapons from other people's accounts. (And I believe in this time, if you tried to apply another retail code to your account, it would overwrite your previous one.)
That was really the extent of the K2 model. I don't recall if they had a webshop to buy anything besides premium.
Next we look at the G1 days. G1 or GamersFirst, was the rebranding/public face of K2. They implemented a new platform where you could tie together multiple accounts - up to 10 - under one umbrella account and introduced a new web shop. Any G1 Credits (G1C) you purchased could be used on any other account. Initially these were used for purchasing premium, but they also introduced the possibility to use G1C on weapons directly. When purchasing with G1C, you got two benefits: you could buy any weapon even if you didn't have premium and you could buy any weapon even if you did not meet the level requirement. Otherwise, players were allowed to also buy Dinar Packages, essentially changing their G1C currency into Dinar currency, which in most cases was a bad deal for players. There were only a few items in the game where buying that weapon with dinar was cheaper than buying it with G1C.
Blurry: I do not know if G1 introduced Random Boxes or not. The random boxes were a way to gamble your money - receive a rare weapon, or more likely receive a common weapon that would've cost less if you bought it directly.
G1 introduced Premium Codes that you could purchase and give to a friend so they could get premium. G1 had also introduced the 3-day Gold (or was it Bronze?) Premium code, which was a great way to let people trial premium to see if they liked the benefits it provided.
G1 had a promo code system incorporated in their game. If you spent $5 (equivalent to 400 G1C), you would receive a promo code. And this was cumulative - if you spent 200 G1C one day, then a week later spent 300 G1C, you'd earn a code. Then spend another 300 G1C (800 G1C total), and you'd get a second code. These codes could be shared with friends, so if the code you got was for something you didn't like, no worries. I think rarely in these codes you could earn a permanent weapon.
G1 also set up a partnership with advertising networks such that players could complete surveys by giving up a lot of their personal information and answering a few (or a ton) of questions in exchange for receiving some G1C. This allowed players who otherwise didn't have the means to pay the opportunity to get some money.
A little later, G1 started to introduce weapons exclusive to the web shop. Even if you had premium, you had to buy these weapons with G1C. I believe that players with premium received a discount on all G1C purchases - bronze premium was 10% discount, silver premium was 20% discount, and gold premium was a 30% discount. This discount didn't apply to Dinar purchase.
G1 then introduced the Nick Change PX which allowed players to change their nickname for I think $2 worth of G1C.
Sometime later, it was noticed in the files that a new kind of premium border was added to the game - Platinum premium. G1 confirmed plans to release Platinum premium, something even greater than Gold premium. However, I do not believe it was ever added. And at some point they stopped selling Bronze and Silver premium - only gold premium was sold. (Some players bought multiple months of Bronze/Silver premium before they were discontinued so their badges would stand out more and they'd get a little more prestige in the community.)
Toward the end of G1's publication of the game, they introduced increasingly more "awesome" sales. This reached its peak when players could buy directly a permanent weapon - which was previously only from retail packages many years ago, or from special events/promotions as top prizes. The weapons from the sales were actually injected as a 10 year lease, not actual permanent weapons, and G1 had promised that if players needed these to be extended, they could contact G1 support and they'd extend it. [This is important for Papaya to know because this happened in 2011-2012, and in 4-5 years if Papaya is still hosting this, they may be getting asked to extend these weapons.] After a lot of these sales, it was then announced that G1 would stop publishing the game and that Nexon would take over. The cost of the permanent weapons was such that G1 made a profit - if they were 10 months away from stopping publishing the game, they'd sell the cost of a permanent weapon as 12 months worth. The cost of permanents slowly came down, to the point where it only cost the equivalent of 6 months of renting it when it was early 2012 (G1 stopped hosting at the end of May).
For players who had multiple permanent weapons, which were in the 8th slot, you had to go onto their website and change what permanent weapon was applied to your account. This required being logged out of the game, so you couldn't in a match change from your Assault with an M60 to your Sniper with an AIAW in 8th slot.
So then we move to Nexon. Nexon's accounts were not under any umbrella system like G1's were, so all accounts were separated. G1 Credits were of course not tied to the accounts on migration. Nexon however modeled their web shop much the same as G1 - use Nexon Cash to bypass premium/level restrictions.
There was a problem with the permanent weapons though. Someone will need to refresh me on the details. But some accounts lost their permanent weapons on transfer. (Mine changed from an M134 to an M249, but I never heard of anyone else's retail changing.) Players who had multiple permanent weapons were found to only have one. As G1 was being creative in how they could manage multiple weapons by essentially letting the user inject and overwrite the weapon registered in theg ame by using the website, that data wasn't actually tied to the accounts. G1 did send this information to Nexon shortly after the migration, and Nexon out of good will injected these weapons for players, in a proper way.
Nexon did implement a bonus for new accounts - a permanent weapon in the 8th slot. I believe what weapon you got was dependent on the time you made the account, as Nexon occasionally changed the weapon. At one point you could receive an 8th slot M60 for the assault, and at another you could receive an 8th slot P90 for the Engineer.
There was a gimmick with Nexon though. While players may have had permanent weapons, many players found they did not have access to them. You needed to unlock the 8th slot to use them. And the 8th slot was only sold, for all 5 years Nexon published the game, as a 30 day rental. Some players were lucky and could still use their weapon(s?) in the 8th slot without buying their 8th Slot PX item to unlock it.
Nexon also continued the trend of introducing some weapons that could not be bought with Dinar. I do not know if Nexon gave discounts for players who had premium when purchasing with NX Cash like G1 gave players.
Nexon's money maker was with random boxes. Like I mentioned previously, the random boxes rarely gave out the top prize, though the top prize was something very desirable like a permanent weapon. As time went on (and going on right now as Nexon enters its final weeks of publication), Nexon added sales events where if you bought X number of random boxes but didn't get the top prize, Nexon would manually give you the top prize. The amount of money you'd have to spend to get all those boxes was at $200 or more.
Nexon also had another way to make money, but on a smaller scale. Added to the game were Key Boxes (which also had random contents) - players could easily get these items, in fact I believe you get them after evey game, and I must have amassed a ton of them. But the only way to open them was with a Key. The only way to get a Key was to buy it with NXCash.
Another way Nexon made money was with Weapon Crafting. You could earn ingredients for crafting a weapon in game by meeting certain achievements like getting headshots. It would be randomly earned in the middle of a match (I didn't get them too often). Alternatively, you could buy these ingredients with NXCash if you needed more. Buy a Crafting Item, and you had a chance at getting the item that that Craft was named after (the top prize) - crafting would cost you weapons (the more days rental you had on your weapons, the longer the rental on the crafted weapon) and the ingredients you earned/purchased. You could increase the odds of a successful (winning) craft by paying NXCash for tickets - but it still wasn't a guarantee. There was still a good chance you'd fail (lose) and receive one of the typical weapons that were available in the item shop.
So a lot of what Nexon used to make money was on gambling. They kept Gold Premium, never reintroduced Bronze/Silver Premium, and never introduced Platinum Premium. There were a handful of items that were not exclusively purchased with NX Cash, and in fact a few weapons that could be purchased with dinar by F2P players. A lot of the weapons that were made into prizes in the random boxes/key boxes/crafts were reskins of current weapons. Some weapons were available for NX Cash directly that were reskins of existing weapons. For the most part the reskinned weapons did not have any difference in functionality compared to the normal counterpart. But some weapons were weaker or stronger than the normal counterpart - the M249 Nickel was notoriously underpowered compared to the normal M249 (the M249 Black) and was supposedly fixed multiple times, and the M202 Stinger Winter was dealt more damage than the regular M202 Stinger.
One last thing that Nexon made use of was public announcements. While K2/G1 had restricted the feature to only the administrators, Nexon sold the ability to broadcast an announcement as a one-time use item.
Come to think of it there were some reskinned weapons toward the end of the G1 days - I was the first to get a G36 Camo as a prize in a contest. But a lot of them were introduced during Nexon's time.
And that is the extent of what I recall for how K2Network/GamersFirst and Nexon (Europe/Global) made money.
Papaya Play is new - the platform was founded just last year. The team is willing to receive community input to figure out the direction the game should go - and I think that is fantastic.
I would like to hear your thoughts - and hopefully Papaya Play would like to hear them too and would read this post - about what you think is the way to move forward in balancing F2P vs P2P players.
On one end of the spectrum, the term "Pay2Win" comes out where paying provides a large advantage over other players. The F2P players are dissatisfied, and it risks causing them to leave. And without F2P players, the games are less populated, and P2P players start getting bored - the population falls into a downward spiral. And as we can see in Nexon's last days, there are far fewer players.
On the other end, you have a game where there is little incentive to pay because paying doesn't give you enough benefits. And so the company isn't making any money.
So we need to reach a middle ground.
Feel free to brainstorm and submit your own ideas on what you'd like to see. You can even break from the models WarRock has been under in the past - the 30 day premium, direct weapon purchases, chances at winning permanent items, and directly winning permanent items. If you think of other ways that would make money but not make a game Pay2Win for Vertigo, please share. Give your feedback on how you felt about the different ways the previous publishers tried to make money.
I'd like to go over a history on this. I'd like to update it as other players can chime in with their memories and experiences, and correct any mistakes I made. This history is for all players to reflect on to give themselves inspiration on what can be reintroduced, kept, and/or changed. It's also for Vertigo Games who may not know the history of WarRock.
History of Paid Benefits
K2
During the K2 (K2Network) days, there were 4 tiers of players based on payment. The Free2Play (F2P), the Bronze Premium, the Silver Premium, and the Gold Premium. Players could see who were in each of these tiers because the Level Badge around their name would change color accordingly (F2P had the basic gray border). The benefits were as follows (this is incomplete, if anyone has a list of how it was back then, please let me know):
Information below is sourced from Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
Any premium: You could host a room with any map, and you had full access to the weapon's shop (assuming you were of level to buy a weapon). You were allowed to buy premium-exclusive items even if your premium was about to expire (but not too soon; I think 1-3 days was the cutoff?), and use these weapons as a F2P. Some important premium only items are the PX items - I always thought they meant Premium eXclusive, but that may not be true. PX items were things besides guns - flash mines, adrenaline stick, 5th slot, exp bonus, Supermaster, etc. Additionally, the clan system depended on at least the clan master having premium. Back then, the game was so popular that when the servers were nearing capacity, if you were a F2P you may not be able to join the server and had to pick a less populated one, but a premium player was able to access any server they wanted. (Also customer service prioritized premium players.)
Bronze premium ($6): You got a 21,000 dinar bonus and 30 days of bronze premium. There was a 20% EXP bonus for each game while you were premium.
Silver premium ($10): You got a 40,500 dinar bonus and 30 days of silver premium. A 30% EXP bonus was also given to players, and private rooms could be created.
Gold premium ($15): You got a 55,500 dinar bonus, 5th slot for free, and 30 days of gold premium. A 50% exp bonus was included. You could create private rooms and give custom names to rooms.
The game also featured what were called Retails. These were packages that were sold physically at stores and would come with a map book/mini guide to the game, dogtags, and a code to redeem for 30 days of gold premium and an 8th Slot Weapon (which was the only way to get an 8th slot weapon). They came in 6 varieties: The G36C_D retail for Engineers, the AIAW retail for Snipers, the Famas retail for Assaults, the M60 retail for Assaults, the M134 retail for Heavy Troopers, and the M249 retail for Heavy Troopers. (The last one was quite special because M249 was only usable on Assault class otherwise.) The original intention of these retails were to be 30 days only, and they would expire, like any other weapon. However, a glitch in the system caused them to never expire. Out of good will, K2 never removed premium weapons from other people's accounts. (And I believe in this time, if you tried to apply another retail code to your account, it would overwrite your previous one.)
That was really the extent of the K2 model. I don't recall if they had a webshop to buy anything besides premium.
GamersFirst
Next we look at the G1 days. G1 or GamersFirst, was the rebranding/public face of K2. They implemented a new platform where you could tie together multiple accounts - up to 10 - under one umbrella account and introduced a new web shop. Any G1 Credits (G1C) you purchased could be used on any other account. Initially these were used for purchasing premium, but they also introduced the possibility to use G1C on weapons directly. When purchasing with G1C, you got two benefits: you could buy any weapon even if you didn't have premium and you could buy any weapon even if you did not meet the level requirement. Otherwise, players were allowed to also buy Dinar Packages, essentially changing their G1C currency into Dinar currency, which in most cases was a bad deal for players. There were only a few items in the game where buying that weapon with dinar was cheaper than buying it with G1C.Blurry: I do not know if G1 introduced Random Boxes or not. The random boxes were a way to gamble your money - receive a rare weapon, or more likely receive a common weapon that would've cost less if you bought it directly.
G1 introduced Premium Codes that you could purchase and give to a friend so they could get premium. G1 had also introduced the 3-day Gold (or was it Bronze?) Premium code, which was a great way to let people trial premium to see if they liked the benefits it provided.
G1 had a promo code system incorporated in their game. If you spent $5 (equivalent to 400 G1C), you would receive a promo code. And this was cumulative - if you spent 200 G1C one day, then a week later spent 300 G1C, you'd earn a code. Then spend another 300 G1C (800 G1C total), and you'd get a second code. These codes could be shared with friends, so if the code you got was for something you didn't like, no worries. I think rarely in these codes you could earn a permanent weapon.
G1 also set up a partnership with advertising networks such that players could complete surveys by giving up a lot of their personal information and answering a few (or a ton) of questions in exchange for receiving some G1C. This allowed players who otherwise didn't have the means to pay the opportunity to get some money.
A little later, G1 started to introduce weapons exclusive to the web shop. Even if you had premium, you had to buy these weapons with G1C. I believe that players with premium received a discount on all G1C purchases - bronze premium was 10% discount, silver premium was 20% discount, and gold premium was a 30% discount. This discount didn't apply to Dinar purchase.
G1 then introduced the Nick Change PX which allowed players to change their nickname for I think $2 worth of G1C.
Sometime later, it was noticed in the files that a new kind of premium border was added to the game - Platinum premium. G1 confirmed plans to release Platinum premium, something even greater than Gold premium. However, I do not believe it was ever added. And at some point they stopped selling Bronze and Silver premium - only gold premium was sold. (Some players bought multiple months of Bronze/Silver premium before they were discontinued so their badges would stand out more and they'd get a little more prestige in the community.)
Toward the end of G1's publication of the game, they introduced increasingly more "awesome" sales. This reached its peak when players could buy directly a permanent weapon - which was previously only from retail packages many years ago, or from special events/promotions as top prizes. The weapons from the sales were actually injected as a 10 year lease, not actual permanent weapons, and G1 had promised that if players needed these to be extended, they could contact G1 support and they'd extend it. [This is important for Papaya to know because this happened in 2011-2012, and in 4-5 years if Papaya is still hosting this, they may be getting asked to extend these weapons.] After a lot of these sales, it was then announced that G1 would stop publishing the game and that Nexon would take over. The cost of the permanent weapons was such that G1 made a profit - if they were 10 months away from stopping publishing the game, they'd sell the cost of a permanent weapon as 12 months worth. The cost of permanents slowly came down, to the point where it only cost the equivalent of 6 months of renting it when it was early 2012 (G1 stopped hosting at the end of May).
For players who had multiple permanent weapons, which were in the 8th slot, you had to go onto their website and change what permanent weapon was applied to your account. This required being logged out of the game, so you couldn't in a match change from your Assault with an M60 to your Sniper with an AIAW in 8th slot.
Nexon
So then we move to Nexon. Nexon's accounts were not under any umbrella system like G1's were, so all accounts were separated. G1 Credits were of course not tied to the accounts on migration. Nexon however modeled their web shop much the same as G1 - use Nexon Cash to bypass premium/level restrictions.There was a problem with the permanent weapons though. Someone will need to refresh me on the details. But some accounts lost their permanent weapons on transfer. (Mine changed from an M134 to an M249, but I never heard of anyone else's retail changing.) Players who had multiple permanent weapons were found to only have one. As G1 was being creative in how they could manage multiple weapons by essentially letting the user inject and overwrite the weapon registered in theg ame by using the website, that data wasn't actually tied to the accounts. G1 did send this information to Nexon shortly after the migration, and Nexon out of good will injected these weapons for players, in a proper way.
Nexon did implement a bonus for new accounts - a permanent weapon in the 8th slot. I believe what weapon you got was dependent on the time you made the account, as Nexon occasionally changed the weapon. At one point you could receive an 8th slot M60 for the assault, and at another you could receive an 8th slot P90 for the Engineer.
There was a gimmick with Nexon though. While players may have had permanent weapons, many players found they did not have access to them. You needed to unlock the 8th slot to use them. And the 8th slot was only sold, for all 5 years Nexon published the game, as a 30 day rental. Some players were lucky and could still use their weapon(s?) in the 8th slot without buying their 8th Slot PX item to unlock it.
Nexon also continued the trend of introducing some weapons that could not be bought with Dinar. I do not know if Nexon gave discounts for players who had premium when purchasing with NX Cash like G1 gave players.
Nexon's money maker was with random boxes. Like I mentioned previously, the random boxes rarely gave out the top prize, though the top prize was something very desirable like a permanent weapon. As time went on (and going on right now as Nexon enters its final weeks of publication), Nexon added sales events where if you bought X number of random boxes but didn't get the top prize, Nexon would manually give you the top prize. The amount of money you'd have to spend to get all those boxes was at $200 or more.
Nexon also had another way to make money, but on a smaller scale. Added to the game were Key Boxes (which also had random contents) - players could easily get these items, in fact I believe you get them after evey game, and I must have amassed a ton of them. But the only way to open them was with a Key. The only way to get a Key was to buy it with NXCash.
Another way Nexon made money was with Weapon Crafting. You could earn ingredients for crafting a weapon in game by meeting certain achievements like getting headshots. It would be randomly earned in the middle of a match (I didn't get them too often). Alternatively, you could buy these ingredients with NXCash if you needed more. Buy a Crafting Item, and you had a chance at getting the item that that Craft was named after (the top prize) - crafting would cost you weapons (the more days rental you had on your weapons, the longer the rental on the crafted weapon) and the ingredients you earned/purchased. You could increase the odds of a successful (winning) craft by paying NXCash for tickets - but it still wasn't a guarantee. There was still a good chance you'd fail (lose) and receive one of the typical weapons that were available in the item shop.
So a lot of what Nexon used to make money was on gambling. They kept Gold Premium, never reintroduced Bronze/Silver Premium, and never introduced Platinum Premium. There were a handful of items that were not exclusively purchased with NX Cash, and in fact a few weapons that could be purchased with dinar by F2P players. A lot of the weapons that were made into prizes in the random boxes/key boxes/crafts were reskins of current weapons. Some weapons were available for NX Cash directly that were reskins of existing weapons. For the most part the reskinned weapons did not have any difference in functionality compared to the normal counterpart. But some weapons were weaker or stronger than the normal counterpart - the M249 Nickel was notoriously underpowered compared to the normal M249 (the M249 Black) and was supposedly fixed multiple times, and the M202 Stinger Winter was dealt more damage than the regular M202 Stinger.
One last thing that Nexon made use of was public announcements. While K2/G1 had restricted the feature to only the administrators, Nexon sold the ability to broadcast an announcement as a one-time use item.
Come to think of it there were some reskinned weapons toward the end of the G1 days - I was the first to get a G36 Camo as a prize in a contest. But a lot of them were introduced during Nexon's time.
And that is the extent of what I recall for how K2Network/GamersFirst and Nexon (Europe/Global) made money.
Much needed features on a forum
- A spoiler tag or otherwise collapsible element.
- More flexible tabling.
- Not being forced to sign out.
- Quoting buttons.
Comments
(The lists below should be bulleted, not numbered. However, the bulleted lists don't appear to work?)
PX Items need balancing to f2p. Some of these being expensive for F2P would be good, or otherwise restricted.
- One idea is to allow the selection of one PX Item (whether that's 5th slot PX, 8th Slot PX, Flash Mines, Adrenaline, EXP 20% Up, etc.) to be purchased at a time if you are F2P. Someone who is premium should have unlimited access to as many PX Items as they like.
- That other idea is trickier to implement. It would be great if there were a way to give a premium discount on weapons in general, and make the cost of PX Items 3-4x that for F2P as P2P players.
- The next idea which is probably the easiest to implement is making select, PX items purchasable as F2P: Bandages, Crosshairs, SP 5% Up, 8th Slot PX, Binoculars (I haven't seen those used in forever, though they're only for select maps), and Supermaster for example. I'd personally like to see Adrenaline on there as an F2P player, but it is a really good item that should be used to incentivize people becoming Premium.
My next major idea is how to make the game less Pay2Win... How to take away a big advantage paying players have. Of course, the ideal way to fine tune this is like the second approach to the PX items - being able to adjust the price based on premium status. However, the bypass to this is give a large dinar bonus for purchase of premium, and keep prices for weapons elevated otherwise.- My approach would be make all weapons F2P, but a little expensive to obtain with dinar. Dinar should still be readily accessible, and someone who is breathing life into the game by playing at least 2-3 hours a day (so 60-90 hours per month) should be able to afford at least 3 good weapons (a secondary weapon and two primary weapons, or a secondary, primary, and PX). So the pricing and dinar payout needs to account for that.
- Additionally, skinned weapons should be level restricted at higher levels than their normal counterpart. This gives an incentive to leveling, to get cool weapons, and premium players can level faster to obtain it. If you would like to make the skinned weapons have no level requirement when purchasing with Papaya Cash (I apologize I do not know what digital currency you use), that's totally fair from a business perspective. It gives an incentive for players to buy weapons to look cool instead of putting the time forward, but it doesn't give any fundamental advantage against players who meet the minimum level requirement for the normal skinned weapon.
- The game for years used level requirements set at level 6, 11, 16, 21, and even 26. I do not know of any weapons that went higher than that, as most new weapons were introduced as cash only, or level 1 universally.
And finally, my ideas regarding random boxes - some part of the community must like them because they probably earned Nexon some good money.- You can keep them - people willing to pay for low yield rates and are somehow happy doing that shouldn't be stopped.
- But I wonder if you could get more people to buy into the random boxes if you are guaranteed a good weapon - just you wouldn't know for what class you're getting a weapon.
- Maybe you're getting a Famas, or a Vector, or an AW50F, and if you don't play those classes, you may have "lost" with your purchase. If you use weapons otherwise obtainable in the shop, I'd argue to bundle similar, if not the same, priced items together as the potential prizes. And then price the entire box at a slight discount compared to straight buying those weapons for NX Cash - incentivizing people to buy the box that could save them money, or give them a "less desired" weapon.
- Otherwise, these random boxes can be filled with weapons exclusive to the random boxes. There shouldn't be a chance of getting weapons obtainable outside of these random boxes though.
---On a note for premium incentives: I would contend that you should give all players - premium and F2P - the chance to host all maps. The difference is that the ability to change the room settings should remain a premium feature - that's what would make them better room hosts because they can change the map and mode after a match without the whole room having to be shut down and recreated. The longevity of the game is helped by players getting a variety of maps to play on, and the premium incentive where only a few maps get hosted by F2P works against that variety as only the most popular of maps ever get hosted. I have seen it where a premium map does get hosted, the room master leaves, and the current room master is not premium. The room dies, unless that room master who cannot even start the room leaves and someone else premium happens to be around to get master.
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An extra take I'd like to see: Reintroduce Bronze and Silver premium. Silver at least. Gold premium should have a large dinar bonus for purchasing it, and come with the highest exp/dinar earn bonus. I'd say that Gold premium should come with free 5th slot and 8th slot; Silver premium with smaller bonuses and comes with just free 5th slot; and Bronze premium with even smaller bonuses. But I am kind of stuck on what else should be given when you buy a different tier of premium...
Actually, a purchase of premium gold should come with a 3-day promo code for a bronze (or silver or gold) premium to share with friends who otherwise wouldn't buy premium. That can be the incentive over something like silver premium for someone who already has a lot of dinar and would buy the 8th Slot PX item separately - their friend can use the bronze premium and stock up on PX items or otherwise premium exclusive weapons for their third slot (or even 5th slot if they buy 5th Slot PX).
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G1 had their promo code system, described in the OP. I think that is a great system and incentivizes spending. You buy something outright for its value, but then you're getting something else on top of that. That is a better approach, as a consumer, than the random boxes which is basically paying for a promo code (and one that I cannot share with friends if it's something I don't want, but something they do).
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Costumes/clothing are a thing. I forgot about that. I never purchased them, so I do not know what the system is like and I did not include it in the history - if someone can inform me, that'd be great.
But here's my take on clothing: If you can introduce clothing that gives no stat changes, and is only an aesthetic change, those are weapons that you can make available if you are paying only, and can make them permanent purchases. They can then be used to show off "Hey, I've paid for the game before, I'm a supporter" even after premium expires. And knowing that something is going to be obtained permanently, it helps players make that jump from F2P to P2P. And hopefully after they made that jump, they'll want to stick around being P2P.
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One additional thing that I have no qualms with people paying for: Public Announcements. I've seen people buy this just for the sake of bantering with friends (or enemies) publicly, and I think it's a great money maker. There's no harm to other players who see it, and people are willing to pay for it. (In case Papaya doesn't know, the public announcements are in-game messages that scroll the top of the screen and last 5-15 seconds depending on the length of the message.)
Much needed features on a forum
Much needed features on a forum
(Cqc less because otherwise they would farm them way to easy compared to BG / AI Players)
Everyone would be able to get PX Items like HPKit (Supply Box), Charakter Parts like the BlackGloves (Military Supply) or Retails (Military Supply).
- The G1 Promocode System should be implemented. I still Play some G1 Games and they still got this System at every Game. Loved to get guns like G36Camo for Free back in the Days ♡ (Promocode Items are Special Items / Versions of a Gun. There was no other way to get a G36Camo 8thSlot, TMP9Nickel 8thSlot or BarettCamo)
- Maps for everyone would be rly Nice. I guess this would Change alot about what Maps will be played.
- I still dont know why they removed Bronze / Silver Prem. Please bring it back...
- Login Reward for F2P Players would be a nice turn too. Maybe Dinars, Charakters, PX Items, 1- 3 Day Premium what ever.
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- All Vehicles need to be Rebalanced. For "Normal" Players is it Impossible to Destroy Engeener-Tanks etc.
- Remove the Red Dots by Hit or Maybe do it like this: Guns with Silencers wont create a Red Dot (but they do less Damage) shouldnt be that Hard.
- Team Balancing (well everyone knows the Problem, dont need to explain)
- Guns need a new Balancing.
> Some Guns like "F1" got 50Damage (Stat) but its impossible to kill someone with it (0 Damage) Same for Veresk Dual. I need 30 hits of a 40 Round Magazin to kill someone.
> Heavy Trooper Guns should be Rebalanced. (More Damage vs Vehicles Maybe)
> More Guns should get the ability to kill Players in Cars like Aw50F.
> Shotgun "KSG" is the most Powerfull (at least nearly) Shotgun in every other Shooter. In WarRock its the worst. Its not about Aiming its about Luck if someone Die or not. (2-5 Hits for a kill but it is as slow as Winchester)
I could increase this list like forever, but im gonna stop right here...
As i said, ill put my Back to Harmony thread here soon.
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Much needed features on a forum
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But I see where they are coming from.
@nicodemo I suggested this too also dinar packages would be awesome
Be nice to also have random sales too, rather than just on special occasions.
I'm sure the Home GMs and Papaya Play will listen to the community.
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I think that you should be able to access the Item Shop from sitting in a room lobby so you don't have to leave to main lobby to access the Item Shop.
Should also be able to change from "explosive" to "FFA" or other game modes in CQC without having to re-create the room, also change room size from 8-16 without having to remake.
Could even be an idea to choose how many players you want in the room, so you could pick "10" for a CQC match instead of either "8" or "16", or any number you want.
Mike
When It comes to random sales, what Nexon did when It comes to sales was in my opinion just pure awful. For example the ESL packages with the weapons, they created those, only for the ESL community and was only given away during the tournaments on ESL. But later on they understood that It would bring a lot more money If they just released It in the Item Shop for anyone to buy which happend and they actually succeeded with that. I don't want Papaya Play to put a lot of packages on sales with different things. The main focus must remain on the servers, that's the number one goal/reason why WarRock has become what It is today. Imagine a WarRock with no lag, just like any other game, why couldn't they fix It in WarRock? If that problem is solved, then we should focus on stuff like dinar packages, premium packages etc. Otherwise, we could just say, 'Say hi once again to Nexon Global, July 13th'.
the way to move forward in balancing F2P vs P2P players."
First of all I'm going to mention the weapon balance, this is the most important thing to do and nothing will work well without this, the weapons stats and functionality are a big mess right now.
And for sure the best way is to have completely free2play game, not pay2win that we have now, this means you wouldn't be able to buy anything that gives advantage over free2play items/weapons or things such as skinned weapons that have better stats etc.
This is must if you want the game to get popular, if a game is pay2win and 1 big youtuber gives it a negative review mentioning pay2win, it can make hundreds of thousands of players to not even think about trying the game out, that's how it goes nowadays.
"Well how would you do that in a way that also monetizes the game?"
I have a very good ideas that are combined ideas from what is done in other free2play games:
1. Level up unlock system
-Unlock weapons and items to be purchasable with Dinar when leveling up, example.
When you level up to level 5, you can buy 5% SP UP with Dinar, however you could also buy this item with real money even before the level, therefore just getting you ready for battle faster, but not giving an advantage, because anyone can get it after playing the game enough, this method is "grindy" but this way at least you can have a legit free2play game, this also gives more purpose for leveling up, that never really had much of a purpose.
You could have weapons and items to be unlocked up to level 30/50 for example. Also if having big level from the past is problem, you could either have a separate "Papaya level" for these unlocks or new "item shop level" which would be exp gained since this system became available. But before this could be done there would need to be complete weapon/item balancing, its a big mess currently.
2. There are currently real money/premium only items that are fine and doesn't cause unbalance issues and there are more to be made, currently we have following items for real money/premium only that are completely fine:
-Revival coins, these give advantage in zombie mode, so against A.I, that is totally fine, if zombie mode works properly, I'd personally be glad to buy some of these to help me in the challenging new zombie map for example. Zombie mode in War Rock is pretty good, with some improvements and fixes it could be more popular and more items/weapons specifically for zombie mode could be sold.
-Exp/Dinar ups, totally fine, again its just skipping the grind.
-Ham Radio, Nick Change, KD Ratio Reset, fine, doesn't affect balance.
-Tank Camo in Premium, camos are totally fine, I just don't think it fits in premium since not everyone plays BG/tanks. So selling these another way would be great.
2.1. Then there are real money/premium only items that would be fine with some tweaking:
-Weapons with different skins/camos, these are fine mostly but needs some tweaking, some have useless scopes and some have stats increased which is not fine, again its about the balance, so not gonna mention more about that, instead I'm going to tell good ways to sell skinned weapons:
+"Monthly premium skin"
+"Seasonal skin supply box" e.g have different skin for specific weapon in supply
box and one rare and few semi rares that changes every month/bi-monthly/season and then
like in the supply boxes now, you get one skin randomly from 5 days to
permanent.
+And also Packages e.g "Autumn camo package" with e.g K1, M4A1, PSG1 and RPG1 each for 30 days.
By doing sales like this there is no straight way to buy one skin separately (at least not the most rare ones) most of the time, so there is no easy way to get specific skin for long time so people can have more rare skins, of course unless you pay a lot for them which is good because it keeps the game running.
-Characters/parts/clothing, currently they give big advantage over whoever doesn't buy them, my way of balancing this would be:
Make the characters have no stats/advantage for CQC/BG modes and only have advantages in A.I Channel aka zombie mode. This way you can sell cool characters that only have cosmetic effect and no advantages against other players. You can also make the characters or character parts give more EXP/Dinar or have different emotes/taunts or whatever they are called that can be done by pressing F8-F12.
-Premium, it could use some tweaking if we were to make this game free2play, now you get:
Tank Camo Digital, Super Master, 5th slot, exp ups, weapons/items and the premium itself includes Dinar, Access to items in item shop and being able to access any map in room creation. And there are variations of premium that includes similar stuff.
Tank Camo is fine but it doesn't fit the premium since not everyone plays BG/Tanks, it should be sold another way.
Super Master, this is fine as it gives some extra XP for you and others in the room. It fits in premium well.
Same goes for EXP Ups and in the premium itself there is 50% exp too, its nice only way to have this specific exp ups.
5th slot, I guess its fine as long as its also available for dinar, which it isn't at the moment.
Access to items in item shop, I think this should be removed because ideally you want to have access to items for dinar too, some from the beginning and some after level ups.
Full map access for room creation, this should be removed because every map should be available for everyone
Weapons, my idea is to have monthly/bi-monthly limited weapon camos/character parts included in premium, its almost like that now except that there are weapons that are not available for dinar.
Items, items like sp up or Fast reload, those should be available for dinar and then you could include them. There is also "nick name decoration" is this the Stealth badge or what?
So Premium would be left with: 50% Premium exp boost, possible other EXP/Dinar Ups, Super Master, monthly limited weapon camos, Dinar and maybe items like SP Ups/Fast Reload and Stealth badge. Additionally you could have things like -20% off everything in item shop.
2.2. Additional things that could be added that would be fine for real money only:
-New Taunts (when you press F8, F9 etc.)
-Weapons specifically for Zombie mode
-Super master 2, if you really want people to play in your room you can buy this expensive item that gives every player who plays in the room additional 20% Exp and Dinar (Super master 1 is only 10% exp no dinar)
-There is more that I can't remember now, I've had tons of things in my mind in the past.
Ending the post: Lastly I would like to say that for all of these to work we would really need to do proper balancing for weapons, systems like random boxes, Mystery boxes, military supply boxes and sales, those are a big mess atm. Things like Gun Smith could be an event only and not every day thing. There are a lot stuff that I will prolly cover in other threads or make my own topics.
Also writing this for couple of hours cause I had to look up some things etc. so kinda tired now.
Feel free to ask anything or throw more ideas for what could be added for point 2.2 for example. or for premium.
Edit: Edited the weapon balance part in the beginning and 2.1 weapons with skins part.
Regarding the story: If anyone remembers, K2 (and G1?) had a story published on their site. It was something about a guy had an envelope with an important message, he just needed to deliver it and he'd be done working for his employer and he could go back to a normal life and spend time with his wife and kids, but then he gets assassinated and the envelope taken from him.
Whether that's the DE-sanctioned story or something K2 came up with, I'd like Papaya to come back with a story to explain what exactly the War Rock is.
I agree that cleaning out unused textures would be good. I also agree that getting all of the game's UI and sounds into one theme would be good, though this one takes more effort.
Everything else you brought up, PleaseNoPlease, I'd passively support.
Much needed features on a forum
Regarding part 2 of your post, I very much agree that balanced weapons would make for really nice experience, in my thread on my latest post I showed a proper way to balance weapons (example./suggestion is about snipers only though, at least for now)
http://forum.papayaplay.com/index.php?p=/discussion/356155/weapon-map-gameplay-balance-f2p-model-balance-and-solutions-explained-ideas#latest
The balancing suggestion is not quite like you suggested but I think its the best you can make for this game, we don't need to go full IRL as its not that realistic game, balance matters more.
About pistols, we will get balance patch that will include buffed Magnum which will have 50% damage and accuracy, making it at least way more fun that it was before and also buffed Desert Eagle that will have 75% damage making it 1-shot kill to head, so its actually a legit challenger for Mp5k, I have switched to Deagle over Mp5k in Korean WR because I'm enjoying it a lot and it feels just as effective as Mp5k.
3. They are currently upgrading some graphics over at Korean WR, I don't know how much exactly but I don't think its that much, but I do think that its enough, WR graphics are fine, if I want to play game for graphics I play Battlefield (Can't wait for battlefield 5!).
I also agree that some of your ideas like weapon balance would help to save War Rock, in my opinion its the number 2 biggest problem together with other balance issues, right after Lag/performance problems.
Also please go read my thread and the latest post and leave a comment!
WarRock to any other game they say: Man.. WarRock looks ugly as fuck.
Look at those graphics. No shaders, no proper looks or vibrant colors.
Everything is so "mufty" in WarRock."
I can see where certain people are coming from but as i've been here since WarRock was a day or so old its the way WarRock is, the way it was born, its always been like that and will always be that way.
We get updates from Korean WarRock, so if there's changes, ours will change.
WarRock isn't a game that has had Millions of £/$/Euros spent on it, such as games like Battlefield, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, etc.., They're have millions spent on there games for the 'latest graphics', WarRock is more like a 'Coded in your bedroom' type of game compared to those games. I love WarRock, ok it gets frustrating at times, I've quit 3x in 10Years, but i've always come back, something about the gameplay and mechanism of WarRock thats brings me back and back again.
Regards.
Mike
And if he does actually touch you, he does like 30% damage, not 100%.
Much needed features on a forum
0:34 "true free to play", also I went to their forums and there it was indeed confirmed:
"Free to Play
GP & NX Equality
Between 2008 and 2017, a lot of things have changed in the world of
online gaming and the world of free-to-play games and we have decided to
make Combat Arms a true free-to-play game. What does “true free-to-play
game” mean? Up until now, there were several items in Combat Arms that
you could only ever be unlocked by acquiring them for NX. Come
21.6.2017, everything in game will be available for both GP and NX. This
major change to Combat Arms’ shop system will have several other
consequences, which at the same time will readjust other things that
needed a second look. We’re looking forward to sharing more details
about this with you soon."
Oh and they balance everything in the game, which is necessary.
We need those things too sooooooooooooooooooooooo badly.
#MakeWrFree2Win
As for North(/South) America Servers - I think it's far too late for that. If the game suddenly had a boost in popularity, it should be considered. But as it is with not even enough players to fill one server, new servers would just go unused. And if you forced people onto their nearest server, that would just kill the game faster by discouraging people from playing at unconventional hours in their local time.
I'm in support of customized clan tags. And not just the "generate with these options" tags. Actual custom uploads. There's potential copyright issues, but, when really shrink an image down to like 50x50, that really shouldn't be a problem.
Agree that OVC and Cheaters need to be taken care of. How is EAC doing now?
Much needed features on a forum