If you had a chose, what payment plan would chose:

oshaylinux · Post by **oshaylinux** » 08 Dec 2009, 02:01

Are there any other payment options you would like to see?

Dr Houbenheimer · Post by **Dr Houbenheimer** » 08 Dec 2009, 07:02

Huh, I thought WO was going to be completely free?!

oshaylinux · Post by **oshaylinux** » 08 Dec 2009, 07:46

Dr Houbenheimer wrote:Huh, I thought WO was going to be completely free?!

No, not FREE but free2play!

Nitrodemon McLaren · Post by **Nitrodemon McLaren** » 08 Dec 2009, 13:15

Yeah, they'll probably charge for the good stuff... I sort of hope not though.

ElvenAvenger · Post by **ElvenAvenger** » 08 Dec 2009, 15:25

probably going to be like: You want to buy that spoiler/hood/bumper/roofscoop/bodykit? 2.99â‚¬ has to be paid first.
i hope they wont do that but it probably will end up that way. atleast i hope we can paint cars for in-game money.

Racemaniac · Post by **Racemaniac** » 08 Dec 2009, 21:26

Or maybe we have to pay for half the carlist or certain body parts in packages which include roof scoops, hoods, bodykits, paint, etc. Similarly there can even be performance packages.

Dr Houbenheimer · Post by **Dr Houbenheimer** » 09 Dec 2009, 09:20

jayson74 wrote:This is from the EA Website

Need for Speed World Online for the PC is the largest open world game in the history of Need for Speed, with an extensive roster of licensed cars and game modes - all for free online. The game follows the free to play business model which generates revenue through advertising and in-game item sales. World Online will begin the beta process in Taiwan this winter and will open to players around the world in fall 2010.

Oh well, I thought Bojan thought that it would be 100% free, including performance and visual modifications.

Post by **Bojan** » 09 Dec 2009, 09:50

No, I said it's free to download and free to play which it will be. Any extras we'll see

Dr Houbenheimer · Post by **Dr Houbenheimer** » 09 Dec 2009, 10:36

Okay, no problem. Couldn't see them running the game with everything ingame free anyway, would be hard to make a profit with just ingame advertising. Let's hope some things can be free though...

Nitrodemon McLaren · Post by **Nitrodemon McLaren** » 09 Dec 2009, 17:04

Dr Houbenheimer wrote:Okay, no problem. Couldn't see them running the game with everything ingame free anyway, would be hard to make a profit with just ingame advertising. Let's hope some things can be free though...

Many small sites which allow you to play MMOs for 100% free of cost for anything and rely mainly on in-game advertising. I don't see why such a large company such as EA can't do that, but then again, large companies desire profit, so I can see...

Post by **Bojan** » 09 Dec 2009, 17:19

As John Doyle said in the recent podcast, the payment model hasn't been decided yet and will be based on community input. I'm sure you'll be able to provide the input once the beta starts early next year.

ElvenAvenger · Post by **ElvenAvenger** » 09 Dec 2009, 19:20

Guess its time to spam them with "Don't make performance upgrades paid with real money" mails?
seriously, only thing they could possibly charge for is visual upgrades.
or maybe just do kind of like in Carbon, you could get all the cars/performance upgrades instantly for real money but still were able to get them the normal way, by playing. that way i think everyone would be happy. some lazy people would buy that kind of service, and those who wouldn't need it, would not buy it, simple.

jayson74 · Post by **jayson74** » 15 Dec 2009, 02:28

I'm not a fan of micro transactions. So a one time payment of $50-70 would be great for me. That way it's no different then buying the game.

Racemaniac · Post by **Racemaniac** » 15 Dec 2009, 04:41

jayson74 wrote:I'm not a fan of micro transactions. So a one time payment of $50-70 would be great for me. That way it's no different then buying the game.

Something like a buy-it-all pack?

jayson74 · Post by **jayson74** » 15 Dec 2009, 08:02

Racemaniac wrote:Something like a buy-it-all pack?

Precisely. I'd rather get it all at one time and do away with the nickel and diming.

Dr Houbenheimer · Post by **Dr Houbenheimer** » 15 Dec 2009, 10:40

I like the sound of both ElvenEvenger and jayson's ideas, though the likelyhood of a "buy it all" pack is very unlikely. As long as you can earn the majority of the visual and performance upgrades without microtransactions, I'm happy

ElvenAvenger · Post by **ElvenAvenger** » 21 Dec 2009, 15:58

Racemaniac wrote:
jayson74 wrote:I'm not a fan of micro transactions. So a one time payment of $50-70 would be great for me. That way it's no different then buying the game.
Something like a buy-it-all pack?

Yes , its kind of only thing i would accept about micro transactions in game.
When i buy a game, i want to be sure that the money i paid was not wasted.
The DLC they brought up nowadays is just a cheap way of saying that they are too lazy to bring out full out addons to games.
I prefer to buy a full addon for price of a game, than buying 5 different things that in total make the addon.
Most of time the currency i have to pay in is expensive for me so i end up paying alot more, then comes in the bank account fee stuff, and the fact that you get a box+cd in case of a full addon, and in case of DLC you dont get nothing.
It cost me moneyworth of one new game to get all of the car DLC in Burnout Paradise for PC, sure they were great, but i'd pay alot less if it had been in a box and even less if it was avaible to buy in any shop located in my country.
People should do something about this, customer is being treated not like a customer but instead like a gold mine. mine until nothing is left.
Not to mention before addons were enormous, now DLC is USUALLY small, and yet the price barely differs.

Racemaniac · Post by **Racemaniac** » 22 Dec 2009, 04:34

They could do something that for very 6-7 packs of DLC and add ons they could release it to the public in a box at a cheaper price (obviously) or just do something new and make the price for the DLC in your local currency which would be a great help and would help us customers save some money.

Dr Houbenheimer · Post by **Dr Houbenheimer** » 23 Dec 2009, 13:55

Well they're is this game called Battlefield Heroes which works around a very similar business concept to WO, and the majority of stuff is free, but they keep bringing out special items and stuff which you can purchase for a microtransaction. This would be a good idea for WO, as your average Joe NFS player can go about his business without paying a cent, and the cashed up hardcore supernerds (which there are many

) can get their beloved works bodykit

And from there, they won't need to bring out any DLC , they can just update the specials if they want to bring in new stuff to the game, and they can bring out full downloadable expansions for big things like new cities and stuff (not hinting at a BAYVIEW or OLYMPIC CITY or even a TRI CITY expansion pack xD)

Anyway, if you're looking at this post EA (I'm praying that at some time you do) that this is your best bet for a business model, and this is probably how the majority of players would like it.

ElvenAvenger · Post by **ElvenAvenger** » 26 Dec 2009, 20:07

Dr Houbenheimer wrote:Well they're is this game called Battlefield Heroes which works around a very similar business concept to WO, and the majority of stuff is free, but they keep bringing out special items and stuff which you can purchase for a microtransaction. This would be a good idea for WO, as your average Joe NFS player can go about his business without paying a cent, and the cashed up hardcore supernerds (which there are many ) can get their beloved works bodykit

And from there, they won't need to bring out any DLC , they can just update the specials if they want to bring in new stuff to the game, and they can bring out full downloadable expansions for big things like new cities and stuff (not hinting at a BAYVIEW or OLYMPIC CITY or even a TRI CITY expansion pack xD)

Anyway, if you're looking at this post EA (I'm praying that at some time you do) that this is your best bet for a business model, and this is probably how the majority of players would like it.

great idea. whole thing they are making now is free, THEN they add paid stuff. but not performance upgrades.....i dont want to see level 10 turbo chargers after a month, just for 5.99â‚¬! in the EA store or anything like that.

Dr Houbenheimer · Post by **Dr Houbenheimer** » 27 Dec 2009, 07:39

Yeah so my idea is that you offer upgrades and stuff for ingame money, but then you can introduce like exclusive top of the range items for your paying customers, and you can continue to refresh these with new parts of different styles and stuff to keep up interest.

Racemaniac · Post by **Racemaniac** » 27 Dec 2009, 15:07

Hopefully they won't do that to the performance parts and just keep it at the visuals as that could create a sense of exclusivity for any buyers of these parts.

Dr Houbenheimer · Post by **Dr Houbenheimer** » 28 Dec 2009, 02:07

Well wouldn't it create a "sense of exclusivity" for people purchasing "exclusive" visual parts as well?

I'll go back to the BattleField Heroes example - Every month they have new special clothing ( you know, like one week people can pay to get medieval clothing that they can purchase and own for a certain amount of time, or, for more money they can own the item permanently, and then this would apply for future months when they introduce pirate clothing, and then ninja clothing, and then maybe clown costumes) and they would also introduce exclusive weapons each month ( which are rarely on sale for permanent ownership, but can be bought for a few days, a week or a month, something along those lines) so they would have a slight advantage on the "performance" side of things, but it's not like a guy with the exclusive weapon cannot be killed by a guy with a normal weapon. Anyway, the person who is not willing to spend their money on ingame items can work up ingame VP ( Valour Points, earned through gameplay, but in the case of WO, it would be cash from winning races) to buy a similar weapon to help even out the battle, but obviously you'd want to keep it so the people buying with real money would have a slight advantage still so that they would keep spending and not just by weapons with ingame money.

Converting this to WO, you could buy performance parts with both ingame and real money, but to make people want to spend their money you'd make it so that (example)

Level 1 turbocharger costs $X ingame money

Level 2 turbocharger costs $XX ingame money

Level 3 turbocharger costs $X real money

So against people not buying anything with either ingame or real money, the person playing with the Lvl 3 turbocharger bought with their real money would have a distinct advantage, but against someone who has bought a Lvl 1 or 2 turbocharger with ingame money, the person would have a SLIGHT advantage. This could apply to all performance parts.

Therefore, people will have felt that it has been worth their while spending real money on a high quality part, but at the same time a player not willing to pay real money can still progress through the game without being completely pwned by someone who has got all they're parts via microtransactions. So just to reiterate, a person having payed for Lvl 3 parts will have an advantage over a person who payed ingame for Lvl 1 or 2 parts, and even moreso for someone who hasn't bought any parts and still has his cars stock parts, but in the end, if the racing ability of the "ingame" driver is considerably better than the "microtransaction" player then the "ingame" driver will still win.

Just another thought, going back to the Battlefield Heroes example again, with the exclusive parts every month, the developers could work on an exclusive car every month, it doesn't have to be a better car than any ingame car, but paying players could buy this exclusive car every month, and I think that if I'd bought a "limited edition" car that is only available for one month then I would be really happy. For instance, all the cars that come with the game are available with ingame money, but for the month of "January" people can pay a microtransaction for the Skyline 2000 (from SHIFT) and that would only be available in that month, and then next month you could have a (um...) Lexus Soarer, but keep 99% of cars free available from the car lot on the initial start of the game.

Oh well, this took like half an hour to write so I hope you all go to the small effort of reading all this, and most importantly EA. Actually, I think I might go email that guy from EA with what I wrote up there before in conjunction with this post, and hope for a response

Racemaniac · Post by **Racemaniac** » 29 Dec 2009, 18:44

So you're saying that the player with a Lvl 3 turbocharger will obviously have an advantage over a person with a Lvl 2 turbocharger but if the Lvl 2 turbocharger has more skill, he'll still end up winning which would result in making both parties happy. That idea will definitely work and I agree with it 100%!

As for the paid monthly cars, are they cars that are already in the game or special out of the game cars?

Dr Houbenheimer · Post by **Dr Houbenheimer** » 30 Dec 2009, 01:16

Nah, I'm saying keep the car list for the game, but every month they can have a special car that they make post release available each month for paying customers if they want to buy it. If EA could keep the cars varied then I'm sure most people will find a car that is a favourite of theirs, and spend a microtransaction to own it. Also, the sense of exclusivity it presents to the buyer - If you see a car driving around that only a very small % of racers own, then it's a bit of a wow factor, like if you see someone with some crazy vinyls on their car and you've got a two tone or something.

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