In reply to a post by MrTAToad2:

Suit me fine - as long as they don't expect me to buy anything in game...

Hmmmm.......that's what I thought until I read SPOOK's reply.

I can imagine only having one machine gun, one pistol, one rifle etc. unless you pay for extras. If the main F2P protestations are based around the issue of trust, I think sadly SPOOKish is right to be worried.

That's why I only read the first 500 words.

What sort of things were you getting for each £5-7 transaction?

Only joking SPOOK.

You highlighted the fundamental problem with F2P. I had thought about whether or not I would need the extra content and how easily I could resist paying for it (as ilh has mentioned) and not about how far they could trim back the starting content. I wasn't thinking laterally enough!

In which case you either play something else or you make do with what you've got...

Im sure Spook wrote the bible

In reply to a post by time2die:

Im sure Spook wrote the bible

I did! But only for a laugh. Surprised by how seriously some people have taken it.

Yeah, well. You just gotta remember the bottom line is always about finding new ways for cashing in.

Ilh's experience with WoT should be interesting as the only time I played a F2P game was with Battlefield Heroes and I wasn't at all tempted to pay for the XP points to buy stuff.

EA gave loads of assurances players wouldn't be put at a disadvantage should they choose not to pay for anything but it quickly became apparent that there were some serious advantages in doing so.

I really feel if the game's good enough then it will easily hook players in with dangling all that paid content. And, as I said before, the sky really is the limit as far as to how far it all goes. In many ways, the F2P model is really ingenious, it's said to work really well in the far east where it is said cultural norms of copyright protection don't really exist so as far as beating piracy, F2P has got to be a good thing.

I think it's good in the way all those kids will still be able to play games they might otherwise have gotten for free from some torrent or other. And good that they at least have the option of being enticed to shell out some of their limited pocket money on buying items in game. I suppose, in some ways, it could be said, the F2P model allows more of a fairer, less restrictive entry model: a pay what you can afford system but the cynic in me is deeply sceptical about the real intent in all this. It's about money at the end of the day and they just can't get enough.

I'll just do a (hopefully) quick explanation of how WoT works and then explain what spending money does for you.

In WoT you have currently 4 nations (going to be 7 in total) and for each nation you have a series of tanks. These tanks are split by type (light, medium, heavy, tank destroyers and artillery(SPGs)) and then further split into 10 tiers. Here is a screen shot of 2 nation's tech trees so you can get some idea of tanks available.

You then go for fights (15v15) which are usually split into tier brackets - so for example a mix of tiers 5-7 on each team. In these fights you earn credits and XP. How much you earn is basically dependant on how much damage you do and whether your team wins. XP is used to unlock modules (bigger guns, better engines, new turrets etc.) and unlock new tanks. Credits are used to buy modules and unlock new tanks but also you have to repair your tank after a fight and buy ammunition. You can also fit 3 bits of equipment that improve your tank and these cost lots of credits.

You also end up spending quite a lot on training/re-training crew members. Your crew earns experience like tanks do and when they hit 100% training they can start specialising in areas that give you an advantage. So when you unlock your new tank you can move your crew and re-train them for the new tank so that these skills move to your shiny new tank. Depending on how you chose to do this it can cost credits or real money.

Someone who plays WoT might cringe at how I have described that as there is plenty of other things that I could talk about or explain better but as a basic intro I think it is not too bad.

Now, beyond the credits and XP there is gold and gold costs real world money - they do the odd competition where you can win it and have clan wars where again you can win it but it doesn't count for 99.999% of players. Here is a list (not exhaustive) of things you can do with your gold:

1) buy premium for X days. 1 month costs about £8.45 if you just buy the 2,500 gold to do it. If you were to spend the £82 then it works out at £7/month. Premium accounts mean that you earn an extra 50% XP and an extra 50% credits for every fight.
2) buy premium tanks - premium tanks exist for tiers 2-8 and cannot be researched through the tech tree. These tanks tend to have really low repair costs and earn a bucket full of credits even if you lose. Obviously the tier VIII premiums cost more gold but they also give you the most credits per battle.
3) Retrain your crew - a new tank with a brand new crew comes with them 50% trained. For 20k credits per crew member you can get them to 75% and for 200 gold per crew member you can get them to 100% and ready to work on their skills. When moving crew from 1 tank to another retraining them for free (from 100%) drops them to 75%, for 20k/crew to 90% and then your gold keeps them at 100%.
4) gold ammo. Rather controversial, gold ammo improves penetration/damage of shells meaning you can hurt people easier. It is rarely used in random games though but it does suck when someone does use it against you. Mainly used in clan wars to ensure they win gold... which they then spend on more gold ammo. It gives small increases though - as much as it makes things easier it does not make you unstoppable...
5) Camouflage - adds no in game value but makes your tank look cooler...
6) extra garage slots. You start with 4-5 but if you want more tanks then it is 300 gold per slotw (premium tanks come with their own garage slot).
7) converting experience. I haven't explained the XP mechanic very well as there is a lot to it but generally speaking XP earned in a fight whilst driving tank X can only really be used on tank X. It is possible once you have finished researching everything for tank X to use tank X to create XP that can be converted - using gold - to 'free XP 'and used on any tank you want. I really wouldn't recommend this though - it would get very expensive very quickly...

A final point is that it entirely possible at tiers 8 (possibly 7) to lose credits on a fight where your team loses (or even a bad win where you don't do much to help!). Shells for tanks can cost 1,650 credits each and you can spend perhaps 30,000 repairing your tank - you only earn 16,000 for the round and fired 12 shells it can be... expensive. To deal with this you can either keep lower tier tanks to finance the big boys, you can have premium for the extra 50% credits or you can buy a premium tank that you keep forever.

So as you see there are plenty of ways to spend real money - I haven't even included all of them there - just the main ones!

If any of you are thinking of playing then I can give you more in depth advice but basically I would say invest in a tier 8 premium tank (some are better than others!) as soon as you decide you like the game and perhaps run premium for a month or 2 to get out of the low tier tanks into something more respectable as soon as possible.

[edit]You of course can play this game entirely free but for me it would take the fun out of it - you would spend too long playing tanks you didn't want to just for the occasional run out in a tank you wanted to play. It would also be painfully slow to even unlock the tanks you wanted to get to. I have 15 days left on my premium and I may possibly put 1 more month on but by then I will have unlocked most of what I want and I have a premium tank so will be able to easily supplement my credit earnings there...[/edit]

Edited by deleted (Fri 29-Jun-12 11:38:35)

Okay, so the million dollar question has to be 'how much have you spent roughly so far?' And how long have you been playing? This 'free to play' model looks quite expensive to me!

There's a lot to this WoT player investment mechanic, it's obviously been given a lot of thought to quite a devious level. Your advice for new players not languishing at the lower (free) ranks too long is pertinent as are quite a few others. Converting experience (7) sounds a bit iffy to me but not nearly as much as the ability to lose credits in a fight, which presumably makes you poorer financially in the real world too?

To me, it sounds as if the game developers have created a formula that obviously rewards investment: of time and money. With the premium subscription component I guess there must be quite a drive to get the most out of it and play WoT as much as possible before your time runs out, to achieve your objectives before it does. And then when it does run out, no doubt you will likely have new aims that need funding and subscribing again becomes the most economically advantageous option, but at the cost of your social life I guess!

It must be a really good (and addictive) game then if you're putting so much effort into it. I don't think it's my cup of tea really but would you say you are enjoying it? I mean, that's a daft question to ask a person playing a game for fun but we all know some games go beyond the fun element and can become obsessions as you grind it out in order to better your player stats. How much, given in a ratio would you say the fun factor was for you? Say 80:20 (fun:grinding) or is it, as I suspect, rather more complicated than that?

Edited by deleted (Fri 29-Jun-12 20:29:59)