Free to Play Cast: Is it "Pay-to-Win," TERA, and Spellweaver Ep 166

Time to ring in the New Year with our first F2P Cast of 2016! We review all the happenings at this year's SMITE World Championships, discuss the Red 5 money news, and even work in some Marvel Heroes chat. All that and more on this week's Free to Play Cast!

Discussion Timestamps:

01:37 Defining Pay-to-Win
29:35 TERA
38:05 Spellweaver Review
41:03 Weekly Bombs (DA-Bomb / A-Bomb)
52:01 Questions and Answers of the Week

If you have submissions for the show's Weekly Bombs, have questions for the panel (nothing is off limits!), or just ideas for what you want covered you can now send them to magicman@mmobomb.com. You can also be a guest in the show, just send us why you want to host, and what topic or game you would like to cover.

Free-To-Play Cast is the official podcast (and videocast) of MMOBomb.com about free to play multiplayer online games. Free-To-Play Cast takes on the week's biggest news with plenty of opinion, weekly bombs, community feedback, guests, laughs thrown in for good measure and much more. Have fun and expect a new episode next week!

Don´t forget to subscribe to Free to Play Cast via Youtube.

Share this Video:

Discussion (8)

ElusiveXTreasure 8 years ago
I'm not a fan of episodic releases either. In fact the FFVII remake has me in a twist. On one hand I'm very excited for it, it was my first RPG after all and nothing will ever measure up to it. However, a lot of the information about what they're doing with it... including it spanning several games ... whatever that might mean.. have me hesitant to be so gung-ho. The only rationale I have for it being multiple games is that fact that the original was several discs... perhaps to make it up to par it has to be several games. Between that and them changing the combat system (cringe) I'm keeping a wary eye on it.

koroth21 8 years ago
Well truth be told about your question of the week.... I would make a card game like one of the best fighting card games I have played...Final Fantasy 8 card battling. It was one and still is one of my fav card battling games. You have 3x3 board to put your cards down you both dealt 5 to 7 cards and then. Your cards have attack power 1 to 10 or X on the card. Your card damage is on it all the way around it some of them have more then others and some of the cards only have 1 or a few damage points on it. For anyone who has ever played it you would know what I mean. Then you would play three games best 2 out of three win. I would also add in a team battle one to it were you would have a 5x5 board or 6x6 not sure witch yet for a tag team one. So you and your friends can play it. The amount of card you could make for it would be 1000 upon 10000 and etc. You can even add in specials on the card like poison, sleep, slow, burn, frost and all kinds of crazy things. Its one card game that would last forever and would leave all the card games now days crying just sayin lol.

zariarn 8 years ago
I find that most people have no clue what pay to win actually is. It's just an insult for games they don't like.

View 1 reply
hawkfun 8 years ago
1 ; Lockboxes no problem.
2 : That time problem is the fcking THING that made me stop playing WARFRAME - WAIT 12h - WAIT 12 to WAIT 36h - oh WAIT (in case of Ying Yang frame) - OH WAIT more 12h MORE 36h MORE 36 please.
3 : No problems for cosmetics,in matter of fact SWTOR i love cosmetics on Swtor,but the SWTOR armors,sets and weapons are very well implemented,but cosmetics usually have better effects.
4 : As a free to play player.. if you cant player the game,history at fullest ( SWTOR gives the 55 history free..(dont know if reven went to ftp ) ) i think the game cant be consider FTP...

tolshortte 8 years ago
p2w or not.

1. there has to be a way to Win. so pve only has no win and therefore not p2w imo. the only exceptions would be gating content based on gear qualifications or server rankings.
2. depends on lockbox contents. I don't like them though. whether I play that game or not depends on their implementation and effect on the game.
3. time reduction - I wouldn't play it. most of those types of games time advantages create unfair playing fields imo. if its not p2w its as close you can get without being p2w.
4. I don't care about cosmetics at all. they can make everyone look the same for all I care. if they are going to make money id rather them do it that way than any other. it doesn't affect gameplay at all.
5. content gating to me is not a good thing. I usually support games I play so its generally not an issue to me, but it is something I frown upon. I want my f2p friends to accompany me when I play wherever I go in the game.

Question of the Week:

I would make a card game with gladiators.. you would have a gladiator battling in an arena, either drawn from your hand or preassigned depending on how it worked out development wise. then cards would be your special moves, buffs, heals etc. each type with cooldowns affecting the battle in different ways. each gladiator would have base stats, equipment, and skills that could be chosen to execute randomly or predetermined strategically going in and those cards would be instants on top of that. gladiators would level, as would their skills, etc. new equipment could be purchased with winnings etc. players would manage their gladiator stables, their gladiators, which events to partake in etc. certain matches would have a permadeath chance and would offer greater rewards. also, winning players could call for a execution vote, allowing the computer to generate a % chance of death vote resulting in the execution of the losers gladiator and an infamy rating for the players gladiator calling for the vote. infamy ratings would effect the execution vote of their gladiators in the future resulting in a higher chance of them being executed. then certain tournaments would be by invite only for gladiators with high infamy ratings for grand tournaments and prizes. they wouldn't offer things unobtainable in other ways, but in larger amounts. each stable would have popularity ratings etc etc. each card would be given a score. each hand would have a score limit. do you want a few powerful cards in your hand or would you prefer more mid range or lots of lower range effects. obviously balance would take time and research. over all something a bit more than build your deck, play a match, and increase or decrease your ranking.

Hellsworth 8 years ago
Hey folks, I look at F2P MMOs pretty much as I look at a Mall (to bring up a metaphor) and just about the same way that someone built the Mall's walls and got payed I define those to be kickstarter money (for example, other ways of financing the base game can be included here). Now you can go to the Mall (download the game and play the content) walk around and see the items on sale and come back home (play the content and see if the gameplay and the system fits in what you like, or not) but once you come back home you kinda need to wash your hands before you eat, so you did bring those small free soaps that anyone could pick up from the Mall or you could have the gel but for the gel of course you had to pay (same thing goes for in-game monetization here I guess) now some people will pay because they prefer the nice smell and others might prefer to spend their money elsewhere in the Mall.

What seems to be not well understood is that F2P games nowadays should be seen as a store (and not as a product). You go there have a nice time and maybe buy something you like but not be frustrated by random blocks because nobody likes to be put on hold, either that being the block on a game's content or a traffic congestion in real life, and in the same way comes pay-to-win, just imagine you're in traffic and then there's this car that goes by on the special rich people lane, don't... just don't do the lane at all! :)

Pyro 8 years ago
Oh no that not good Tera becoming pay to win? I think it depend how developer want they there game to be base on power creep in the cash shop same for spellwaver. We don't need anymore Pay to power games and it just turning the community completely cold hearted against each other in most Online games.( I guess that why games are losing there meaning by the developers)


Watch Next

You May Enjoy

Predecessor Gameplay - First Look

A Paragon-inspired project actually see the light of day, but can it compete with a crowded field of MOBAs?

By Troy Blackburn -