|
Eh.. So I spoke to a non-mudding capitalist economics major, who I think is a pretty good authority on this issue, and on track for graduating next year, about the "Free" vs "Free to Play" issue. She gave me this reply pretty much immediately (paraphrased)..
"If the content is not all *immediately* accessible for free, and paying for it only saves the input of time otherwise taken to get it, then its ok to call it 'free to play'. Since Time = Money."
We added surges on AR (automated double exp periods) precisely so that older players with limited time can still make a competitive character within a few weeks, without spending money on it. Essentially, what we did there is make some limited "time" more valuable instead of introducing "money". (It also congregates our playerbase which is getting more important to do with the declining numbers muds are suffering nowadays - we had 60 people online a few weeks ago.)
These lists could (should?) be accompanied with the advantages and disadvantages of both models to help gamers to decide who to throw their boat in with. For example, if a mud is 100% free, but has limited eq, obviously there's going to be people accumulating it until they're uber, especially cleric types that are designed to take a beating. The pay model gives a way around that, that isnt a 5 man gank party... or a cheese assassinate, or being stripped for not playing enough TIME (enforced logins kinda suck), etc.
|