That’s gonna get a no from me
Adding to what Yamiks has already said. Making the base game free to get people to try the game, if they like it they would probably buy Horizons. The downside is the extra stress on servers, imagine having to wait 2min to jump into an instance.
Weighing up all the pros and cons, I'd have to say no to free to play.
Weighing up all the pros and cons, I'd have to say no to free to play.
Not a chance!
Make the tutorials available on a separate server perhaps, but not the game.
Make the tutorials available on a separate server perhaps, but not the game.
Or vice-versa of course.
Well, I guess far fever people would use engineered ships then. xD
It might actually work. As in keep going with the 2.x scheme and when season 4 comes, it's free.
But... to get all the other content you need to buy in the rest.
That, or only sell one "package" that is : the game + 1yr of up-coming content.
Then again, I'm 100% not qualified for saying anything clever or even making sense in those matters
But... to get all the other content you need to buy in the rest.
That, or only sell one "package" that is : the game + 1yr of up-coming content.
Then again, I'm 100% not qualified for saying anything clever or even making sense in those matters
The 'Hirogen' knuckle draggers of PvP, need to find their prey from somewhere
This is a strange question. You pay once for a license and then it's free to play, no month subscription. What game in the universe is for free both license and subscription? Frontier should have hundreds of game developers working for them for free as well? How and where would money come to pay for food, clothes, and housing for the people who actually are working on it? If ED turned into a charity work, we wouldn't see much or any development.
If you want free, no license fee and no subscription, go to Oolite, which is an Elite open source version. It's not as complete, and lacks a lot of the quality that you see in ED, but it's free.
If you want free, no license fee and no subscription, go to Oolite, which is an Elite open source version. It's not as complete, and lacks a lot of the quality that you see in ED, but it's free.
My god. I've been pay a subscription?!
It's very cheap. Like 0p. Wait.
0p is free.
The game is already free to play! Wooh!
Yes, ED should be (remain) free to play.
It's very cheap. Like 0p. Wait.
0p is free.
The game is already free to play! Wooh!
Yes, ED should be (remain) free to play.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so perhaps this picture can sum up Free-to-Play Games:
Refuel your ship? $.99
Restock your ammo? $.99
Repair your hull? $1.99
Repair your structural integrity? $.99
Fix your paint? $.99
And now, a word from our sponsors.
"Do you have $.99? You realize that's less that dollar. It's not even a whole money value. Let us take your $.99 and we'll give you something of absolutely no real value."
Or how about - Elite already is Free-to-Play.
It's not free to download, but you don't get charged for playing.
Pay-to-Play and Pay-to-Win games are garbage, and nothing will convince me otherwise.
Refuel your ship? $.99
Restock your ammo? $.99
Repair your hull? $1.99
Repair your structural integrity? $.99
Fix your paint? $.99
And now, a word from our sponsors.
"Do you have $.99? You realize that's less that dollar. It's not even a whole money value. Let us take your $.99 and we'll give you something of absolutely no real value."
Or how about - Elite already is Free-to-Play.
It's not free to download, but you don't get charged for playing.
Pay-to-Play and Pay-to-Win games are garbage, and nothing will convince me otherwise.
Elite only costs money when you buy it. Playing it is free.
Ziggy Stardust, vice president of the pedantic society.
Ziggy Stardust, vice president of the pedantic society.
Huh... beyond paying for the license to run the software, I have not been forced to pay any additional costs.
Huh... that must mean it's already free to play.
Huh... that must mean it's already free to play.
For those of us who already have the base game and Horizons, it kind of already HAS gone free to play.
Think about it, Frontier is moving away from the season model and likely instead selling smaller piece DLC’s in the store for future content. The store is currently full of cosmetics in various forms across the game and they are weekly adding more cosmetics for sale. This very much follows a F2P business model, just one which avoids pay to win DLC’s. So far at least.
Now the Lifetime Pass owners will be getting the content DLC’s automatically, this will happen whether the base game + Horizons remains for sale or becomes free to everyone regardless. So honestly, if Elite goes F2P and makes the base game + Horizons a free download for anyone, nothing else has to change. In many ways Elite is already perfectly placed to be a F2P game.
Now, what are the downsides of going F2P? Like Yamiks states, the largest negative is the influx of bad seed players. Open would be more salty than ever if the game went F2P, and I’d wager that Mobius would see a massive influx of players fleeing the new griefers flying about. However, there would also likely be a massive influx of good players too, people curious to try the game out, many of which would likely stick around and possibly even start buying stuff from the store as well. That’s Frontier’s positive for going F2P: new potential store sales on cosmetics and future content DLC’s from the people who haven’t been interested enough yet to pay real money for the game.
As a player I don’t think it would honestly impact me much at all if they went F2P at this point, as the game is set up pretty much like a F2P game already, just one with an upfront entry cost.
Think about it, Frontier is moving away from the season model and likely instead selling smaller piece DLC’s in the store for future content. The store is currently full of cosmetics in various forms across the game and they are weekly adding more cosmetics for sale. This very much follows a F2P business model, just one which avoids pay to win DLC’s. So far at least.
Now the Lifetime Pass owners will be getting the content DLC’s automatically, this will happen whether the base game + Horizons remains for sale or becomes free to everyone regardless. So honestly, if Elite goes F2P and makes the base game + Horizons a free download for anyone, nothing else has to change. In many ways Elite is already perfectly placed to be a F2P game.
Now, what are the downsides of going F2P? Like Yamiks states, the largest negative is the influx of bad seed players. Open would be more salty than ever if the game went F2P, and I’d wager that Mobius would see a massive influx of players fleeing the new griefers flying about. However, there would also likely be a massive influx of good players too, people curious to try the game out, many of which would likely stick around and possibly even start buying stuff from the store as well. That’s Frontier’s positive for going F2P: new potential store sales on cosmetics and future content DLC’s from the people who haven’t been interested enough yet to pay real money for the game.
As a player I don’t think it would honestly impact me much at all if they went F2P at this point, as the game is set up pretty much like a F2P game already, just one with an upfront entry cost.