The friendly and never-ending debate of F2PP (Premium) vs. VIP (Monthly Subscription)

There is an ongoing debate over your PERSONAL PREFERENCE of how you prefer to play the game. There is IN FACT NO RIGHT ANSWER to this question. But just so you can get your thoughts out on the matter, or perhaps expose our members to a side they hadn't considered this is where you can do it safely.javascript:emoticonp('')

There will be no name-calling, or any offensive or accusatory talk of any sort, and absolutely no hate speech. Other than that feel free to express yourselves in a peaceful and civilized manner.javascript:emoticonp('')

The debate's question is:
WHICH is better in your opinion, playing DDO on a Free to Play (F2PP) Premium account, or a monthly subscription VIP account?
WHY did you choose the path you chose?javascript:emoticonp('')

Mehdik

Free To Play Premium.

Why: I prefer not to have a monthly bill. I feel it alters my attitude towards the game.

What I did: I went on a favor grind on all the other servers besides Khyber for the 100 favor one time bonus of 125 DDO points per server. These points count as global DDO points so in this manner I decreased the cost of certain essential adventure packs.

What you get: When you spend ANY MONEY AT ALL on this game, that is to say, if you BUY ANY DDO POINTS, you become premium free to play. This means you will receive an account upgrade of 4 character slots (instead of 2), a 50 item Auction House(AH) limit instead of 1, and your idle logout time increases from circa 5 minutes to circa 15. This account upgrade never wears out, but I feel that if your credit card information changes (aka expires) that you would then have to buy more DDO Points to become premium again. I recommend that you use the credit card with the longest expiration date from present so as to avoid this POTENTIAL problem.

I only buy adventure packs when they are on sale.

The adventure packs that are essential in my and many players' minds are:
Gianthold and Vale of Twilight.

I also bought: The Catacombs (cuz it was cheap), Sorrowdusk Isle (good loot - useful for 6-12th level toons and the cheapest point/adventure cost of all the packs) and Delera's (just because it's so awesome to go there, and you get the voice of the master trinket which gives you a +5% xp boost if you manage to remember to put it on before the end of each adventure)

Good ones to consider: The Desert, Necropolis 4, Reaver's Reach, Devils of Shavarrath. Races/Classes: Warforged, Monk. (which can never be unlocked)

Packs I can live without ever owning : Sharn's Syndicate. Necropolis 1-3

I have spent approximately $25.25 on this game and I can confidently get to the endgame without paying more. I fully intend to buy some more adventure packs when they come on sale.

If you intend to get 1750 favor to unlock your free 32 point characters, you must realize that free to play content will only net you around 900 favor. You will need to purchase adventure packs in order to get 1750 favor. A lot of them. The ones I have so far still only netted me circa 1400+ favor. In this case I would recommend going VIP for one month to quickly run through all the pay to play content and get the favor you need so you can get back to playing your adventure packs you own with 32 point builds on F2PP.

I can live without the 8 character slots VIP gives you, as well as the shared bank account and the races and classes. Note: Anything you buy in the DDO store transfers across all servers. Anything that you unlock with favor for free is only applicable to the server that you unlocked it on. For example: Drow @ 400 favor. You do not get to make a Drow on any other server than Khyber. You must buy it in the DDO Store, or unlock it for each server.

Also it should be noted that if you are VIP and you come back down to F2PP you will lose the ability to make Warforged, Favored Souls, Monks, and Drow until you purchase them in the DDO Store, or unlock them with favor. If you have a character that was made in VIP and you don't own the content in F2PP you can purchase what you are missing and get your character back unscathed.

For me, I say F2PP FTW!
But if no one ever spends any money the servers will close/merge. Spend money if you like the game. Keep DDO alive.

So in conclusion, I recommend if you prefer not to have a monthly bill, and instead prefer to make your payments when YOU choose, go F2PP like me.

Hiya guys,

I would like to start by saying that it is never my intent to insult or demean anyone with what I am saying, but rather, trying to get you, the listener, to think in other ways that maybe you haven't considered before!

Okay, for my own personal choice, I can see no other option for me than VIP!

VIP gets:

1. 10 character slots.

2. Idle logout time of 20 minutes.

3. Monk Class.

4. Warforged Race.

5. Unlimited playtime with ALL dungeons and areas unlocked. This includes future expansions as far as I'm aware.

6. A bonus of 500 Turbine Points every month you pay your VIP fee of only $15!

7. Shared Bank!!! This is awesome...you have a bank of 20 slots that you can access from all your characters. Makes transferring stuff so easy!

I personally believe that going this direction is worth it. Take a look at it financially. $15 dollars will buy you: Movie and popcorn...maybe, a few video rentals, a nice meal or two out, a few packs of cigs, a bottle of liquor. Can you afford $15 a month? I think anyone can. I believe that anyone can afford this if they WANT to afford it and make an effort to do so.

Now, as far as F2P, are you really free? I don't believe so!

Other expenses involved with playing this game:

1. Cost of computer to run the game.

2. Cost of internet to run the game.

3. Electricity.

4. Shelter.

5. Future Medical costs. These would include reduced eyesight, increased gut, bad eating habits, all of which contribute to the COST of playing this game. Are these costs in the future and a result of you having played this game? Of course they are.

The single point here is: Nothing in this life is ever truly free, there is ALWAYS a cost to it somewhere!

Sincerely,

Corrig

F2PP but personally, I'd not play this game unless everything were free. Having to pay for what should already be in the game is ridiculous to me. I know there has to be expenses payed for this game but that's also the case with many F2P games but they manage perfectly with their item malls and such not by forcing players to buy "extra" shit that should already be there. I mean seriously you have to pay money just so you're not playing a half-assed game. You should already have all the dungeons/races/classes. Is it really worth paying for?

For the love of god, you can't even post on the forums over a certain amount of times unless you're premium.

After extensive research into the way the membership status' work, I have come to the conclusion that F2PP is best for those that have a good deal of time on their hands, like me.

First off, the f2p content's maximum favor is 916, if you finish everything on elite. The highest level quest that is f2p is a level 12 quest.

However, even though you have all of these seemingly large limitations on what all you can do, there is one big upside. There is no monthly fee...

Now, for those that think they have enough time to spend farming up the needed TP (AKA DDO Points), here is a suggestion you might consider.

1. Get your main character sufficiently high-level enough to solo Korthos, Waterworks, Catacombs (a must buy because it is cheap and gives 65 favor), and the Baudrey chain on Elite (this should get you rather close to 200 favor, or 50 TP).

2. Find 5 others that are able to do the same as what was listed in #1.

3. Designate a character slot to be your reroll slot and make a level 1 character (or level 4 if you have Head Start).

4. You and the other 5 members of your PFG (Point Farming Group) rotate who runs the other 5 through the quests listed in #1.

If you do it right, it should only take 2-4 hours to zerg (or rush) the quests listed in #1. So, here's some numbers for you.

~2 hours (with a high-level rusher) = 50 TP

~4 hours (with a high-level rusher) = 100 TP

~3-4 hours (with a mid-level rusher) = 50 TP

~6-8 hours (with a mid-level rusher) = 100 TP

Now if everyone in your group takes their turn as the rusher, then everyone in the group has made 250 TP in a matter of 1-4 days.

--------Will add more or alter this data as I come across more accurate information, all of this is based on just 2 months of attempting to find groups to do runs like this with...--------

Robi3.0's Free to Play Guide

Good posts guys!

It should be noted that all characters across all servers gain 25 DDO Points for every 100 favor they achieve in the game.

There is a new high-capacity server that was added today called Orien.
It is a good sign that DDO is not going to fail any time soon.
It's also a good place to go farm some more free favor, F2PP'rs.

Yeah, what does this high capacity server mean???

Means it can support a high number of players. Essentially, it's just more powerful :/

yupyups and it runs pretty fast too!
I already done ran my favor!

got my favor already too =D