Global Chat: Free-to-play edition

Welcome to this week's Global Chat! We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more Global Chat!

Free-to-play seemed to be the name of the game this week. Our readers were looking for new free-to-play games, talking about the business model, and making suggestions to one another. Follow along after the jump to see what everyone had to say in this week's Global Chat!

Our first comment comes from the forums. Azsamael is looking for a good game for the younger bunch:

My SO asked me tonight if I knew of any good F2P games that'd be appropriate for his daughters. They range in age from 10 to 13 (eldest is nearly 14, going into high school next year), and all of them are pretty hardcore about fantasy. He prefers getting them all into the same game so as to save on HD space.

I suggested (based on either communities or graphics):

Lord of the Rings Online, Dream of Mirrors Online, Kitsu Saga, Allods Online, Mabinogi, and Perfect World International. I don't know if Atlantica Online might be too much for the youngest, but I think her preference is just making a metric buttload of characters and not actually playing them. The eldest likes killing everything in sight and roleplaying. (He thinks the graphics of MapleStory would be a major turn off for her, which I take to mean Dofus is out as well.) Any thoughts?

Beau delved into the profit side of things in his most recent Free-For-All, and Fakeassname made a very good point about spending limitations placed on players by limited disposable income rather than a lack of desire to own the items in question:

Sure, I'll believe that it's rare for most F2P titles to get over double digits on the number of people who buy from their cash shops, but then again I find it quite amazing that it's even possible to break double digits on the number of players who can afford to buy 10+ enchantment items (at 10+ dollars each).

The next time you get one of those developers on the phone, it might be a good question to ask them — whether or not the limited number of paying customers is due to restrictions they themselves have placed on who can afford to pay.

Finally — and on a slightly different note — our question in a recent Daily Grind sparked a ton of discussion from readers who have tried a game thanks to the recommendation of a Massively team member. Twisvel was one of those:

Many games. Most recently, saw the livestream of the RIFT beta and tried it/bought it as a result. I must say, the Livestreams (MassivelyTV) for games are really helpful, because not only does it show pretty much constant gameplay, but there is commentary as well. Also tried Dark Age of Camelot out after watching Beau's recent stream on it. The site itself is really helpful in outlining patches/patch days for older games you may have played a long time ago but stopped following. Helps to get me interested in them again, even if only for a short while.

Thanks for talking to us this week — we all look forward to more!

Global Chat is the weekly feature that's all about you, our readers. Every Sunday we collect the best, funniest, and most thought-provoking comments from the Massively readers and round them up into Global Chat for discussion. Read over them for yourself, hit the comment button, and add your own thoughts!