Thats a pretty good idea, actually.
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You assumed wrongly. Free to play means exactly what it says: free to play. Downloads (if neccesary) and endless play hours on the game are free, but not all features will be free.
In fact, I don't think a truly free MMO exists anywhere. It jus' wouldn't make sense or be economical.
I'm the one who made the Vacation Mode suggestion thread in the Game Suggestion category. The idea of VM may not be originally mine, but I did spend a bit trying to figure out a way to erase the possibility of abuse so it could be integrated with no problems. Since Evony decided to charge people for it I want to know why. The only thing I can think of is that you are not here to give F2P gamers a good experience, but rather squeeze all the money out of everyone you can by offering features that should be 100% free to everyone to only those who have the ability to pay you. They falsely advertise and over-charge practically everything in their store.
I know the game is free and you have to have a way to keep this game going. Offering high-priced items is fine, but you do not take FEATURES that should be free to everyone and make people pay for them to use them no matter how small the cost to the user. Unfortunately, some people don't have a way to buy things online and as little as it may cost, some people have no wish to pay for it seeing as your game's slogan is "Free Forever". You can not call your game "Free Forever" when you do not provide features like VM for free.
You are taking advantage of your users with this, performing a scam. You know most of your players will take breaks from the game every now and then and YOU wanted to capitalize on it because you are greedy. I lost a lot of respect for the admin team when they did not ask users what sort of changes they wanted to see done to the combat system and other things before changing them anyways. Now I've lost any that might have been left.
If you wanted, you could argue that the price prevents abuse. There is only one problem with that philosophy and that is the fact that it CAN NOT be abused unless someone decides to hack your code. In that case, you have more problems than worrying about someone abusing VM. You don't believe me?
- There is a seven day cooldown time for a reason after using VM. This will prevent users from quickly exiting and entering VM. If you think its too long, this is for VACATION MODE. Not Weekend-Getaway Mode.
- There is also a seven day minimum time limit that you must experience VM. This, again, prevents users from quickly exiting and entering VM.
- Before you enter VM, there is a 24 hour hold on attacking other users. This prevents users from attacking others and then quickly entering VM. It is 24 hours so that people all around the world have a chance to exact revenge on your attacks before you enter VM no matter what timezone they lie in.
- "But what if they attack and I can't hit them back within 24 hours?" You have a full SEVEN DAYS to get ready and hit them with everything you have when they get out.
- "What if they enter Truce Mode afterward?" Well if Evony doesn't like that, let's think real hard for a minute. Prevent the use of Truce mode within 24 hours of coming out of VM and that fixes that problem.
- "What if they take all my resources and destroy my army and I can't get ready in seven days?" I think you have a lot more problems to deal with if you can't get built back up in seven days. If someone did that to you I wouldn't expect you to ever get any revenge seeing as they are, quite possibly, much stronger than you.
I understand that payment can be a big deterrent to abuse, but unfortunately at 10 cents that isn't going to cut it. In a game like this, you can not offer a Weekend-Getaway mode and have it 100% abuse-proof, even with a price tag. To users, if you want to use VM, you will have to find something to do for 7 days. I've said this numerous times as well, if you can't figure out anything to do besides play Evony you have a lot more problems than being in VM.
So, again, I'd like to ask you, Evony, why you feel you should charge people for an almost necessary feature in an MMORTS that occurs in real time and I'm sure a lot of others would like to know why as well. You've taken an idea I provided to you so you could better the gaming experience for EVERYONE, not just your paying customers and you screwed it up royally.
If you still believe this system can be abused, I challenge you to find a scenario where I can not give a reasonable answer to the problem or give a reason as to why that scenario would not matter in the case of VM.
*Capitals do not show anger, only emphasis. The note in general has an aggressive tone.
In order to go as mainstream as things like WoW and DDO, you have to pay for server costs and those can get massive. Unless you are rich, there is no way you can have a free game and not have items sold to keep it going. No game, however, sells features like VM.
That was my point; they all have to sell things to keep it runnin'.
p2p is subscription.
f2p is freeplay.
CS and items and features can be free or charged and not affect whether it's f2p or p2p...I'm jus' sick of people rantin' "this is supposedly f2p but you have to buy things!" when it only shows a misunderstandin' of the term.
VM is (in my mind) an optional, extra feature that is far from neccesary to play or continue the game. That description strikes me as somethin' suited for premium payments.
A lot of other games have premium items that really are neccesary to advance.
Not sayin' I agree with it bein' charged-to-use, I jus' don't see why it's such a big, horrible thing.
In a game where events play out over time in real time between all users, there has to be a way to provide everyone a way to take a break. VM should always be a free feature.
It's sort of like if they forced you to pay 10 cents per day to attack people. That is a feature that should come 100% free. Yes, you can play this game without attacking others, so the game would still be F2P, but a feature like that should always be included.