In today's world of PC gaming, there are three basic categories all games fall under, "Retail", "Pay to Play", and "Free to Play".
A "Retail" game is one that you purchase at your local retailer or online via a service like Steam. For example, some of my most recent retail game purchases have been Battlefield Bad Company 2, Overlord II, and Command & Conquer 4. Most retail games are both single and multiplayer, though some may be single player only, and some offer LAN play as an option. The multiplayer option is most often through dedicated servers.
A "Pay to Play" game is often a retail game you purchase like any other, but is an MMO style game, MMO meaning "Massively Multiplayer Online", they often do not contain any single player options. The game is online multiplayer only and requires the user to pay a monthly fee, often around $15, to play the game. The perfect example of a "Pay to Play" game is World of Warcraft.
Now a "Free to Play" (F2P) is almost identical to a "Pay to Play" game, with the exception there is nothing to buy and it's 100% free to play. It's still an MMO, but requires no monthly fee to play. How most F2P games make their money to maintain the game, pay the bills, and make a profit, is by offering the players optional "Cash Items" that can be purchased or "rented" for real money and used in the game. However these items are not required to play the game. Some F2P game publishers also offer monthly subscription packages just like the Pay to Play games, however they are also not required to play, they simply offer benefits above what you would get if you did not have the subscription.
Now there are a few games that are "hybrids", such as Guild Wars, that would be a retail F2P MMO. You have to buy the game, it's a MMO, yet requires no monthly fee to play. Once you buy it, its free to play.
For me, I do a vast majority of my modern gaming in two of these three categories, Retail and F2P. I have never been a fan of the pay to play model. Once I buy a game, I have no intention of having to pay a monthly fee to be able to continue playing it.
Why choose Free to Play?
Well, it's pretty simple, it's free. Many modern F2P MMO games are quite popular, and there are just so many to choose from, so the chances of finding one you like are pretty good. Most F2P MMO games come in two flavors, First Person Shooters (FPS) and Role Playing Games (RPG). They also come in different "styles" within those flavors. True full 3D massive environments, 2D/3D side-scrollers, "Diablo" type, "Battlefield" type, "Counter-Strike" type, "Arcade" type, some are even a mix of different game types. They all offer something different, even if some of the games are similar in design or use the same engine.
Now I know some people out there argue that the quality of a F2P game is inferior to that of a Retail game. Well, that's simply not the case. Both Retail and F2P games have good and bad titles out there. So in that respect they are identical. Now a retail game may take advantage of new graphic technologies much sooner than a F2P game of the same type, but then again, it's not all about the graphics is it? There are a lot of good F2P games out there that can offer hours and hours of great gameplay just as well as any retail game can.
So I guess the best way is to give a few examples of games in a few of these types and catagories that I have actually played and give a few of my opinions on each.
MMO RPG Games
Sword of the New World: This wonderful game from K2 Networks (GamersFirst) is probably one of the most impressive true 3D games I have ever played. It ranks up there with Hero Online in the fact it has a very unique story, huge open worlds, and addictive fun gameplay. Where this game sets itself apart is in its beauty. The game is graphically beautiful and very unique in many respects. Now I am not a gamer bound by a games graphics, I am far more interested in gameplay, but I have to admit I was impressed by the look of this game. Combine that with the fact the game is also great fun to play and explore and you have an incredible game well worth the time to play.
Dungeon Fighter Online: This is a great 2D/3D RPG/Adventure type game from Nexon that reminds me of old school arcade meets modern MMO. It has an old school arcade look and feel to it yet offers many of features of a modern MMO RPG. Party's, PvP (Player vs Player combat), questing, buy and sell, and a lot more. The main difference with DFO is that the world you play in is your own. You share the towns, shops, and such with everyone else in the game, however when you enter a dungeon to fight its just you or you and your party. So no one is left competing for map space to train, level, and quest. Every dungeon also has a boss you have to beat at the end and treasures to be found. This is a very unique game and great deal of fun to play. It also have quite low system requirements so it's well suited for gamers on older PC's.
Hero Online: I played this game for quite a long time. It's a true full 3D game with huge worlds and environments to explore, monsters to kill, and quests to complete. It offers a rather unique story and gameplay that I really enjoyed. This is probably one of the better true 3D MMO RPG games that I have ever played. The game offers a lot in the way of depth. You can craft and forge, buy and sell, choose from different builds for each class, party and PvP , and even partake in huge faction wars to gain control of areas in order to get extra experience and drops while your faction is in control. Simply a great game all around.
Maplestory: Love it, hate it, this is the most popular F2P MMO RPG in the world, and one of the longest running continuously updated F2P games out there. Its a 2D side -scrolling game from Nexon based around anime style characters. The world of Maplestory is simply massive. This game is insanely popular with people from all ages and walks of life, kids to grandparents, and everything in between. It offers everything any other RPG does, and a lot more, and it it requires very little power on the part of the users PC to play, so it's a great choice for those on older systems. Believe it or not, the game can be quite addictive, and a lot of fun to play.
MMO FPS Games
Combat Arms: This "Counter-Strike" style FPS from Nexon is one of the most popular F2P FPS games of its type out there. Now even though the gameplay is most easily compared to a game like Counter Strike, it's much more modern and uses a powerful game engine, the very same engine used to power F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin. So the game blows CS:S out of the water in that respect. Its also a great deal of fun to play if your looking for fast paced FPS gameplay. It offers many classic game modes such as team deathmatch, free for all, and capture the flag, as well a few others like search and destroy and spy hunt. It also offers coop gameplay, something that's rare in the world of F2P FPS games, in the form of players working together to complete missions vs AI opponents. It even offers up a zombie mode called "Quarantine" where your job is to either infect as many of the other players as you can, or survive as a human until the end of the round. All in all, a great good quality game that I have enjoyed since it was released.
WarRock: This very popular and wonderful game is a "Battlefield" style FPS from K2 Networks (GamersFirst) that is really in the top of its class! What sets this game apart from other F2P FPS games is two things. One, it offers up much larger maps for much larger battles than most other games do, something often only seen in retail games. Two, its a peer to peer based game so it can offer up much larger player capacity in those larger maps, up to 32 players. WarRock is most easily compared to Battlefield since it not only offers smaller close quarters combat, but medium to huge maps loaded with dozens of different types of vehicles to use and master, on air, land, and sea. The game also offers many different game modes like team deathmatch, free for all, conquest, 4v4 deathmatch, and even an objective based mode with special maps where two teams fight to complete a set of objectives while the other team does what it can to stop you, all before time runs out. I have also been playing WarRock since it's very early beta stage and still enjoy it to this day.
The Down Side
So now that I have covered many of the pro's of the Free to Play game model and shared a few of the them that I have actually played. I guess it's only fair to cover the con's as well. Like anything else, there are down sides to F2P games. Here are the most notable ones.
Hacking: The very fact that these games are 100% free to download, create accounts for, and play, make them the worlds easiest targets for those who wish to ruin the gameplay for everyone else. That being the losers coding hacks then selling or otherwise making them available for others to use.
Now these F2P games all have hack protection in the form of 3rd party software such as Punkbuster, Hackshield, or some other anti-cheat engine, as well as recoding the game to try and block or make specific hacks useless. However this is a constant uphill battle these publishers fight every single week. Since hacks are popularity driven, the more popular the game, the higher the demand for hacks for that game, and thus the more hacks you see in the game.
Now I do not hold this against the publishers like many people do, I for one fully understand how the cycle works and how incredibly hard it is to fight these idiots when your game is out there, 100% free for anyone to download, and 100% free to just make a new account once one is banned. So in most of the real popular F2P games, you will see more hack users out in the open than you do in a retail game, since in a retail game it's harder to get back into the game once your banned than it is in a F2P game. So this is something to keep in mind.
Mixed quality: Now there are a lot of damn good F2P games out there besides the ones I mentioned here in this entry. However, there are also a lot of lesser quality ones out there as well. Ones that do not update that often or mislead you into thinking the game is something its not and you don't find that out until you have it downloaded, installed, and an account created. So you may end up going through a few installs of different games before you find one you like.
Communities: The fact the games are 100% free also opens them up for anyone, of any age or maturity level, to play. So you may run into more "immature" players than you normally would in a retail or pay to play game. Though not really a con since you can often just ignore them, but I figured it was worth mentioning since you run into more "QQ" in F2P games than normal. lol
Closing
Even with the con's, Free to Play games are a great idea and something that is becoming more and more popular as time goes on. There are some great games out there that are well worth playing and can offer up just as much fun as any Retail or Pay to Play can. So why not try the ones I mentioned or go out and find one, or more, that better suits your taste and style. Just don't discount them based on the fact they are free, many of them will surprise you. Not to mention, if you really like the game, then you can support it by buying some of those cash items or subscriptions they offer. This can take the game to a whole new level for you, but the great thing is, you don't ever have to spend a single penny if you don't want to!
I guess the moral of this story is, you don't always have to spend money to game, there are quite a few good choices out there and you may me surprised how easy it can be to find a game to fit your taste.
Note: Some people have tried to leave comments here linking to "private servers" for some of the MMO games listed in my post as well as others. All such comments are rejected and the servers linked are submitted to the game publisher. Private servers for these MMO's are illegal and subject to legal action. So please, if you intend on leaving such a comment, please don't. It will only be reported to the games publishers for whatever legal action they see fit to take. If your going to play the game, play it fair and legal, if you can't manage that then you need to go crawl back under your rock. Thanks. :D
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