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Ok I don't know if any of our fellow dakkanauts has noticed this, but there's a catch with the recently-made Free version of Team Fortress 2.

It's Not Premium.

Now I've owned the game prior to the freedom release and I can handle it being free. What my friends and brother pointed out though is that there's a catch - biggest one is trading is not permitted by those with a free account. Now I wouldn't expect most people to be bothered by this when they're playing a decent game for free. But Wait! There's more! IIRC those with a free account are limited to what kinda weapons they'll find in the drops. I can't remember the specifics and it porbably covers the promotional gear offered when you buy another game, e.g. Poker Night at the Inventory.

Those who would be interested to get around this predicament will now have to complete a simple task to gain this privaledge: buy something from the Mann Co. Store. Now considering prices for ingame items (kinda like DLC) aren't that exceptional and despite weapon packs lurking about, it's a bit of a kick in the teeth here. No wonder it's free...

Just thought I'd give people a heads-up.

It's not really all that much of a scam. It is like saying facebook games or MMO's are scams when they ask you to join other sites/etc/etc or pay to earn in game credits.

At the end of the day I am under no pressure to partake in anything other than the game, and if I want to go in for the "extras", that is my choice.

If I play the free version and like it, I might buy the full version and get all the "perks". At the moment I am more than happy playing a free game. It is not like the game hacks into your bank account and runs off with your wife...

How is this a scam? People who didn't pay couldn't play before.

Don't bite the hand that feeds.

Actually....I was expecting this....Corporations want money afterall.

It's not a scam.
It's a clever marketing idea...
Don't make money on selling the game, make money on selling things for the game.

To people: I only used the word scam since I was lacking a better word for it.

Everyone who was going to buy TF2 would've done so by now.

Making the game free-to-play allows everyone to give it a try and see if they'd like to spend more money on it to enhance their experience with it.

Of course a premium game like TF2 isn't going to be completely free; to think this would be the case is total nonsense.

It's just a symptom of the future, really.

That future being that making money on PC games will be about micro-transactions, not necessarily selling the game. Micro-transactions let you gain money from your player base over time, as opposed to getting a single one time fee. Often that's more money than what the one time fee is.

Don't think of the FREE version the full game.

Think of it as an extended free-trial of the game.

Maybe you should have said that this was a "warning" or something; "scam" is a pretty strong word.

A lot of MMOs are heading down the same route; base game is free, any extras are going to cost you.

Redeemer31 wrote:Maybe you should have said that this was a "warning" or something; "scam" is a pretty strong word.

A lot of MMOs are heading down the same route; base game is free, any extras are going to cost you.

I like it. It means i can choose what extras i get and overall it will be cheaper IMO

Juvieus Kaine wrote:Ok I don't know if any of our fellow dakkanauts has noticed this, but there's a catch with the recently-made Free version of Team Fortress 2.

It's Not Premium.

Now I've owned the game prior to the freedom release and I can handle it being free. What my friends and brother pointed out though is that there's a catch - biggest one is trading is not permitted by those with a free account. Now I wouldn't expect most people to be bothered by this when they're playing a decent game for free. But Wait! There's more! IIRC those with a free account are limited to what kinda weapons they'll find in the drops. I can't remember the specifics and it porbably covers the promotional gear offered when you buy another game, e.g. Poker Night at the Inventory.

Those who would be interested to get around this predicament will now have to complete a simple task to gain this privaledge: buy something from the Mann Co. Store. Now considering prices for ingame items (kinda like DLC) aren't that exceptional and despite weapon packs lurking about, it's a bit of a kick in the teeth here. No wonder it's free...

Just thought I'd give people a heads-up.

Well for one, if free accounts were allowed to trade, everyone and their mother would be making free accounts to get alot of items really fast, devaluing most items.

Also, the only "weapons" F2P accounts can't find are Hats.

You can buy hats and I think that once you buy something from the store it no longer counts as f2p because you have paid for part of the game. I'm entirely sure about that but maybe you should just buy one thing from the store.


Free Premium
Backpack: 50 slots 300 slots (expandable up to 1000)
Items: Standard Standard, Rare and Cosmetic
Crafting: Limited blueprints All blueprints
Trading: Receive items only Full trading
Gifting: Can receive gifts Can give and receive gifts


Also buying anything in the Mann Co. store will give you a premium account. So that's like getting a premium account for only $.49 in some cases.

halonachos wrote:You can buy hats and I think that once you buy something from the store it no longer counts as f2p because you have paid for part of the game.

Nope, it's one of the more popular models of F2P games. All the income coming from the store. If I remember correctly it is called the microtransaction model. Still counts as F2P as the game and gameplay didn't cost anything.

I'm not all surprised it went like this, but it's good that it didn't cost anything to be able to play the game. Means I don't have to play it on the 360 now.

Its not too bad, IIRC you just need to pay I think $1 from the store to get premium (other games I used to play would require much more). If you used a steam wallet transaction that means you have $4 left for some excellent starter packs

I spent $20 on this game, and would have gladly spent $50! (well I did already own an orange box for the 360...)

Actually if you try to trade it will tell you that you can't unless you have a premium account and will then offer the chance to upgrade. After which it takes you to the Mann Corp. store and says that buying anything on the Mann Corp. store will upgrade you to premium. Its like LOTRO where there are f2p, premium, and VIP accounts. f2p have never paid for anything, premium used to have a VIP account but aren't paying currently, and VIP are currently paying.

It's nowhere near a scam.
Nothing like the microtransactions in the Korean MMO's. You buy anything from the store and then you can play just as much as anyone who bought the game for $10/20/50.

Juvieus Kaine wrote:To people: I only used the word scam since I was lacking a better word for it.

The term you're looking for is "loss leader."

purplefood wrote:I like it. It means i can choose what extras i get and overall it will be cheaper IMO

I have mixed feelings about essentially paying to stay competitive in the same way as I dislike paying for DLC that should really have been included in the main game. And if I am going to have to buy stuff, at least make it cheap enough that it is worth it - I don't want to have to pay more than I did for the original game for a couple of map packs.

You can get weapons through the milestones or through crafting, but you can only craft basics. I found a couple of the 'eternal rewards' and some other duplicates so I had three scrap. I finished the medic milestone and got the ubersaw which I crafted to make the vitasaw which I crafted to make the amputator.

f2p can also earn a ghastly gibus by dominating a player wearing one. Now there is an item called a ghastlier gibus which can only be earned durin halloween.

I was going to craft the sydney sleeper out of the huntsman and some scrap, but I found a sydney sleeper.

Note: There is a limit on items that can be found during the week.

SilverMK2 wrote:I have mixed feelings about essentially paying to stay competitive in the same way as I dislike paying for DLC that should really have been included in the main game. .

Except if you payed for TF2 originally, the extra stuff is "included" in a ton of free updates (its just that you'll have to find/craft a bunch of them)

Plus a lot of the weapon options are usually not all that better from the vanilla weapons aside from a few exceptions, they just promote a different playing style

Yeah, I got TF2 on the 360, so got hosed...

I got it on PS3, how do you think I feel?

Playing on the console is like playing the beta version, too bad we can't get rewarded for that.

I like the 360 version of TF2 more then the PC version, TBH.

I like the PC version over PS3 because they actually paid attention to the PC version.

I would like to see some sort of thing allowing people who bought the game for the consoles to get some bonuses in the pc version.

I'd like them to release some of the stuff available for the PC version for the console versions

My laptop doesn't really cope with TF2 and I can't be bothered to unpack my PC and clear a space to set it up

SilverMK2 wrote:I'd like them to release some of the stuff available for the PC version for the console versions

Even with the apparent "greediness" of the mann co store, the story goes that valve wants the updates to be free. Microsoft and Sony said no, we want a pricetag

I thought that Valve released steamworks on the PS3 because of the fact that they offer free services.

kenshin620 wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:I'd like them to release some of the stuff available for the PC version for the console versions

Even with the apparent "greediness" of the mann co store, the story goes that valve wants the updates to be free. Microsoft and Sony said no, we want a pricetag

Negatory.

The "story" is that Microsoft has a pretty stringent DLC requirement--it has to meet a set of standards they've put forward, and it also has to have a 'set' price range in many cases. There's no issue with free updates, as they get done quite often for the bigger games, but there is an issue when the 'free' updates break the game and the developer does nothing.

Valve doesn't like the consoles too much, they just recently embraced the PS3. The only thing I need to do is find somebody to take the damn crates I have, either that or trade me something for them.