for context on why I’m speaking on this, I have 3.7k hours (yikes.) on 3.0 and have hosted a few servers between 2016 and 2020, and also have been a typical player on other servers for a lot of time.
Also for context, I hate P2W servers and content just as much as the other guy. I still play on P2W servers sometimes though cause it’s basically free gear when I frag timothy with mommy’s mastercard and get some easy gear. yes, the karma comes back when timothy with mommy’s mastercard comes back with enough raiding gear to destabilize entire countries but it goes both ways.
but I’ll present every issue I believe will affect 3.0, and also Unturned 2 (since I presume the P2W restrictions will also be in U2) with P2W restrictions.
however, before I do, let me point out the flaw within restricting P2W content. it assumes all server owners have the intent to take hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of dollars out of their own pocket with zero ability to profit of it all. Yes, you can say “well people can still donate.” but in a prepubescent-majority community of kids buying shit that isn’t even with their own money? I’d be shocked if server franchise owners in U2 could even break even on rent costs, owning a VPS, potentially modded content, etc.
anyways, I’ll point out the actual issues that I’d see would occur in the future for Unturned:
- Servers will begin charging for slots
a common practice in almost any other game that has P2W restrictions. Server owners need to make money somehow to pay the bills and they’ll do anything that isn’t listed in the EULAs or rules. Charging for slots is one. this happens in Arma servers, CS:GO servers, etc, where the popular servers will make a significant amount of the player slots, “VIP only”. on Arma I’m aware of a server that has 150 player slots, but (as of 2019 cause I stopped playing on it lol) had only 75 of those slots for free players. The other 75 were VIP only. doesn’t sound bad? once there’s more than 75 VIPs on at once (which is a common occurrence, especially weekends) it’ll begin kicking F2P players out to make room for VIPs.
similar on CSGO. if anyone is aware with a certain warmup server (not saying name cause it’d be advertising, but if you play CS you prolly know), prolly the biggest server franchise when it comes to community CSGO, gives VIPs the ability to kick out F2P players whenever the server is full and VIPs want to play. I play on these servers daily and it is annoyingly common that I get kicked out for a VIP that wants to play, especially on weekends. many other servers on CSGO do the same cliche of letting VIPs kick out F2P users whenever they want.
I’d imagine if P2W restrictions exist into U2, we’d see this exact issue in non-official servers where VIPs can force themselves into a server at the cost of a F2P player whenever they want.
- technically not P2W perms, yeouch.
there’s nothing P2W about a role that can, idk, use the /say command for example?
no matter what P2W restrictions exist, VIP/donator roles would still exist. what perms they’d give is still in the air. now since they wouldn’t be able to do the cliche /kit bonuses or whatever, custom non-game related perms can still be given.
I’m aware of CS servers that allow for VIPs to call vote kicks on players, global mutes, map changes, etc.
I’d be confident in Unturned 2, servers would give VIPs commands like /day, /weather, /night, or even /kick and /mute. It’s not really “P2W” which is why it’d “cheat” the restrictions.
I’d rather deal with timothy raiding me back with his mommy’s mastercard than timothy kicking me cause I killed him. cause at least I have a chance with the former.
- the good shit: imperialplugins, modded/commissioned mods and plugins
unturned 3 stayed active, alive and popular for so long BECAUSE of it’s P2W servers.
P2W servers funded catchy and trendy game modes that were heavily powered by high quality plugins from imperialplugins and high detail commissioned Workshop mods.
if it wasn’t for P2W servers, there would be no imperialplugins. because who would buy the plugins if their servers wouldn’t profit? there wouldn’t be such a good workshop, because who would pay to commission them all if they couldn’t profit in the end?
there would’ve been no escape from unturnov. and don’t get me wrong I hated those servers, they were bland and dry af. but they had a crazy amount of players so I can’t disrespect it. there would’ve been none of those RP servers that had a ton of mods and plugins and admins and shit, cause who’s gonna pay for all of that if there is a very very high risk that they’d be unable to break even with donations?
i can confidently tell you, if it wasn’t for imperialplugins and paid content, unturned would’ve heavily declined and died after 2018.
why else do you think vanilla unturned is so dead? not because all the other servers took its players, but nobody wants to play vanilla unturned forever. if unturned 3.0 had always been vanilla only, it would’ve died a long long time ago.
i’d bet money U2 will have a significantly weaker plugin market and potentially even workshop catalog if P2W is banned. this will be fine for a bit, as vanilla and/or official servers will carry the majority of unturned 2’s playerbase for awhile, but when people get bored of vanilla? we won’t have even nearly the same flexibility and versatility that U3 servers had.
- "brooooo unturned hosting isnt even expensive for me so it shouldn’t be expensive for you either!!"
this is such a weak strawman argument, why it’s so relevant to this day is beyond me.
one server alone at lyhme is $12 a month, for 24 slots. lol.
“just use a spare PC” ah yes because people are gonna have a decent enough PC that is powerful enough to host, or a run down computer connected to some residential internet plan so the ping is gonna be atrocious, the server will be slow, it’ll have to wipe often, etc. and that’s supposed to be a better option than lyhme? lol.
if you have at least 4-5 servers, that server rent is gonna stack up. good luck making server franchises. $48+ a month, only the most popular unturned servers would make enough in donations for them to break even at minimum.
