It shouldn't be free. It should be sold for $20. And things like clan support and certain unlockables should be included with that price. I like this game. I like it alot, it's easily the best twitch shooter I've played since older unreal games (think back to UT 99). You get to pilot a FUCKING hardsuit (mecha) in the game. And it doesn't completely break the balance if you're playing with smart people.

But, I can't start a clan. Certain functions are hidden away behind a microtransaction. And because of that, I don't think this game will do as well as it could have. This game should charge you $20 to play, and then make certain special unlockables cost $$. As it is the dev has gotten exactly $0 from me so far, and aside from the $10 it costs to unlock a clan (seriously, $10?????) they probably won't get any more. And that will hinder their development, as I assume I'm not the only person playing totally free.

All that being said, if you're like me and are a little burned on the crop of 'realistic' shooters and the Modern Warfare bastardization of twitch shooters (yes that's inflammatory, I know) then play this goddamn game! I have a thread up for other duders who want to play this game to friend up, and as it turns out the in-game friend system is pretty good and it's really easy to jump into matches with your friends. If we get enough people I'll actually kick in the 10 bucks for a clan (just need a name dammit). Anyways- get your twitch on, and support this dev for at least making a good product, even if the business model is fucked (imho).

EDIT: So my point about twitch shooters is if you're tired of 'realistic' shooters and the Modern Warfare version of twitch shooters- play this game. I definitely feel this game captures some of what was good with the old unreal games.

So you are playing a free to play twich shooter because you are tired of twich shooters?

Am I missing something ?...

Didn't they make this game free-to-play because they tried to sell the original for 15 bucks and failed? 

@Etnos: Fair enough- edited.

@ProfessorEss: I believe (and could be wrong) the $15 game you are thinking of was Blacklight Tango Down- which was an xbla game (hence how it failed). This game is a PC game- and I feel takes advantage of that- good KBM support and a strong graphics presence. (whatever the fuck that means) I think maybe the xbla failure burned them on making a pay game, but I think the PC crowd could support a 15-20 dollar shooter pretty well.

@rebgav: Get your ass over to this thread and put your name on the list damnit! I'm willing to spend the $10 for a clan, but not for 3 people total.

@mfpantst: Tango Down was also a PC game but it was GFWL, so there was the real problem.

@Death_Burnout: Yup. This game isn't. So there isn't that problem at least :)

I don't understand, you'd pay $20 for a few small extra things, but wouldn't pay $10 for just the thing you need?

@Benny: yup. Crazy I know. I just feel this game would serve itself better as a cheap shooter rather than a free shooter with basic features behind a paywall. That being said I'll put up the $10 at some point. But for now I see that as a sticky point for me, and possibly for the developer. I mean, to start a clan I have to give them $10. I think anyone can join in my clan without paying (I think). So then they get that $10 for just me. If everyone paid $20 (or even $15) just to play the game they'd get more money I think.

Why not buy the Steam starter pack? It's kinda the same principle.

I think it's a great game, but I'm not about to spend anything in their store. That said, I haven't paid for micro-transactions since 1x TF2 key an age ago.

I'm not sure whether being free is detrimental or not; I probably wouldn't have played it otherwise. But then I haven't paid anything so I'm not exactly a financial success from their point of view.

@mfpantst have you considered Planetside 2? It's going to be free to play, and is a shooter with hardsuits (and plenty of other vehicles) too. It's closer to Battlefield than the Quake/UT-esque twitch shooters, but may also fit the bill for you.

@Eviternal: I'll have to look into it..

Blacklight Tango Down didn't fail because it was released on the Xbox Live Marketplace or because it's a Windows Live game. It failed mostly because it had poor spawns and several other issues that just made it a bit too forgetable. It was also released when Call of Duty was still going pretty strong. People who don't play games because they're on Windows Live are just raging against an invisible machine. Oh man, you gotta.. log in once and then never do anything with the Windows Live settings again - oh man fuck this game! You have to sign in to the stupid Blacklight servers EVERY time you start the game which is already 100% worse than Games For Windows Live.

I also like this game a lot and I feel the same as @mfpantst in that I'd rather pay like $10 upfront and have a lot more things inherently unlocked. The current model makes this a very "pay to win" type of game which completely breaks it at times. Not enough equipment and parts have a PRO/CON mentality. Most higher end, upper level parts are just plain better. You get a tighter spread, less recoil, and more damage, but you get 1 point of stamina less - thats not proper balancing. The fact that you can unlock these upper tier parts without having reached their level by paying real money is awful.

I actually don't mind the somewhat bloated prices for some of the equipment. $3400 for a permanent sight? Well by the time you get the really good ones like past level 10 you should have at least that much. Almost $8000 for some of the equipment is getting crazy but if you keep playing the game then you can get there.

Problem is that I don't know if at the current pace I'll ever "get there." How long they will support it and what will they add? I don't think there are enough maps and some of them quite frankly aren't very good. I'm level 11 and starting to feel the grind. Turrets and other cool equipment unlock at level 15-20 and I just don't know if I can keep playing the same maps over and over until that happens. At least theres a good variety of game modes and they all have interesting takes. The Kill Confirmed is a much more exciting variant of Deathmatch that I enjoy and domination is also cool with the little mini game.

They established a really interesting base and I hope they manage to build on it. Right now I just don't know how they plan to retain attention or player numbers if things remain as they are.

I understand and agree with the sentiment that I'd rather pay $20-$30 up front for the game and have the basics unlocked (like access to every kind of weapon up front and not only an assault rifle). I'm currently lvl12 with 9000+ GP waiting for level 16 to unlock a sick looking jacket.
 
Like @Humanity said there is a discrepancy with low level unlocks and high level ones but those stats almost mean nothing to me. I get why a magazine adds 10 bullets to your clip and doesn't have any down sides is nice/unfair but I don't get when a barrel lowers your spread by .10 and only decreases what I assume is run speed but could be distance. I have no idea if that actually matters in a firefight. Do those numbers really make up for something? It doesn't ever feel unfair for the most part. At least with the exception of the shotgun. With most other weapon types: sniper, SMG, assault rifle and LMG those are all available at lvl 1 so you can pay a small amount of GP to unlock a weapon for a day and have fun sniping dudes or shooting every bullet ever with your LMG. The shotgun as you can imagine is great for objective games like king of the hill or domination and does real nasty things when you get a jump on a team but you can't use that until lvl 20 unless you pay real money to unlock it early (and who knows if a permanent unlock with in-game currency is possible because the lvl 11 heavy assault rifle can only be purchased for a day using GP, the rest is with real money). I've been playing for 17 hours according to Steam and am only lvl 12. It's gonna be a while until I can use what I feel like is part of the holy trinity of guns (Close - medium - long range).
 
Also, $10 for a clan is stupid