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Tired of item mall (Store) MMO's yet?
Shard101
Member UncommonPosts: 479
I'm sick of them, A Perfect World drew the last straw with me.
All these MMO's are crap and the people who are stupid enough to spend $100's- 1000's are insane.
ALL OF THESE in-game store MMO's are unbalanced and bring nothing new to MMO's except bad marketing.
I think the monthly subscription MMO's offer more and are much more balanced for their whole community.
Comments
P2P and F2P (item malls) are like two different sorts of games.
It would almost be nice to have separate forums for each.
How about separate sites?
I have to agree with you. At least with subscription-based MMO's, your character has what he or she has earned in-game. But with the item mall stuff, your character's gear is bought, not earned, and therefore not worthy of respect in any form.
While there are huge differences between your typical "free to pay"/item mall game and your typical subscription game, some games don't fit in either category. Where would you put Guild Wars there? How about Puzzle Pirates? Star Wars Galaxies? Wizard101?
F2P is a trap.
People who spend insane amounts of money in a game supported by micro transactions are no worse than those people who spend nearly every free hour they have playing a subscription based game. Neither one is healthy.
Some people have more time to spend and other people more money. Just focus on the quality of the game and play whatever pleases you regardless of the system used to sustain its operations.
I have to agree with you. At least with subscription-based MMO's, your character has what he or she has earned in-game. But with the item mall stuff, your character's gear is bought, not earned, and therefore not worthy of respect in any form.
I don't know if you realize this, but you are talking about a video game. An electronic means of entertainment. A person plays a game for enjoyment, not for respect. There's not 1 pixel in any game in existance that one person could hold that makes me in any way "respect" them. If you want respect go out and get an education, get a good job,a nice house, give to a charitable cause, but don't come looking for it in a game.
The only difference between item mall and subscription are teh payment models. You people are full of yourselves if you believe one is superior to the other.
MMOs are a business, just because a company chooses one method over another too make money doesnt automatically mean the game theyprovide is any better or worst.
If you dont like item mall, dont buy from it, if you dont like item mall games dont download them. The is no need to create a seperate forum, or a new website or any nonsense like that.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
There is a much larger difference between these 2 types of games than the subscription models. MMOs might be a buisness but the service provided to P2P users is of a much higher standard than th service provided to F2P users, they play much lower quality games which often have less technical support and the company gets around this by not placing a subscription model and instead putting in an item mall for people to spend all their money on instead and just not realise they are spending so much.
IMO :P
I've always been opposed to the whole concept for the start. I boycott any game that incorporates an item mall because then you are just buying your way to victory and the game is pointless.
Whilst most "item mall" games are rubbish, its not the business model that causes this, its the low budget mass produced mentality of the developer that causes it.
Wait until you get a big budget "item mall" games then judge their quality.
You don't have to spend a lot of money, or any, of course. I'm not sure it matters that much unless you're playing PvP, then I suppose it could make a lot of difference. I'm trying out AO, PWI and RoM right now. They're all decent quality, although Atlantica Online is definitely the better of the three, in every department. You can download these games and play them for free any time you like. There's nothing lost, apart from the time it takes to download!
SOE has already introduced the item mall to a monthly sub game. EQ and EQ2. On top of that they have the micro transaction TCG with special loot cards that have ZERO function in the card game. People are buying the card packs...virtual cards mind...just for the chance to get the loot.
Monthly subs WITH item malls are where they are wanting to go.
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Ten Golden Rules Of Videogame Fanboyism
"SOE has probably united more gamers in hatred than Blizzard has subs"...daelnor
SOE has already introduced the item mall to a monthly sub game. EQ and EQ2. On top of that they have the micro transaction TCG with special loot cards that have ZERO function in the card game. People are buying the card packs...virtual cards mind...just for the chance to get the loot.
Monthly subs WITH item malls are where they are wanting to go.
A combined model is the perfect way to maximise your revenue, though I personally don't think you should alter a game's payment model after it has been developed.
Imagine if there was an "item mall" in the world of professional sports.
Interviewer: Hey, where did you get that Superbowl Ring? You win it?
Player: No, I bought it. Never even been to the Superbowl. But every one on my team has bought one of these rings from the "item mall" because it looks cool.
Item Mall items in a game are as unimpressive as they would be in real life. "Buying your way" is always less of an achievement than "earning your way."
I never really understood why devs couldnt have a separation of F2P and P2P on the same game, some servers free with mall and others ingame only but p2p. there are a number of games I would play if they were p2p, but as they are free they have horrible, horrible communities of 5y/o (lets not get into the debate about maturity, that was an arbitrary age to get a point across) who just whine/spam anything but play the game well. the higher the fee, the better the clientele. True in every business and highly effective in MMOs.
Playing polished, lag free, feature complete games is carebear. Whining about a game you hate but still play is hardcore man!
I realize it is a videogame 100%. While I agree with you on the respect bit I don't support mall MMO's one bit. The reason is I play the game for fun and entertainment. That entertainment does not include me having to buy extra stuff to have the equal opportunities in a game as someone else. I'm quite stingy with my money and I feel the subscription model+expansion model suits me quite well.
If every game had p2p servers and item mall servers 95% of the population would be on f2p =P
For me nothing of this is new as far as business models go. Online gaming started with micropayments (per hour) and then moved to subs for convenience. Now companies are realizing that people will pay for even more convenience so adding item malls to subs is where we are most likely headed. And people love to customize and will pay handsomely for it. But in all honesty, if these people enjoy the game and enjoy pimping their character out does that affect you? Not really it's their money to spend. You either choose to stay free-to-play or to invest in the cash shop. So long as what is available in the item shop does not produce advantages in the game I could care less if people want to pay $5 for a in game outfit item. Allowing people to buy their top end armor / items is crossing the line and destroys the balance of the game. Hopefully companies will realize this.
And people spending $100-$1000 on a virtual character should not be surprising. Anyone who has played CCGs like Magic the Gathering knows just how intensely people are willing to spend to get the best. Companies know this so it's just a matter of time. See Atlantica Online with their mounts / wings.
I currently play LOTRO and to me it is only a matter of time before this game turns into a hybrid. Outfits, housing items, etc could easily fit into an item mall as the developers constantly state it takes intense resources to get them in game. And I know people are willing to pay handsomely for these items because some housing items go for nearly as much as top end armor/weapons on the AH. Turbine says they will never include a item mall but my guess is they are simply waiting for it to become more socially acceptable. Given the popularity of newer MMOs like Runes of Magic, Perfect World, Atlantica Online, etc it shouldn't be too long. Considering KOTOR is rumored to include an item mall I'm guessing it shouldn't be that far off the horizon.
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Currently Playing: Lord of the Rings Online since original Open Beta, Atlantica Online
Waiting On: Knights of the Old Republic, Aion
Played: World of Warcraft (3 years), Ultima Online (2 years), EvE Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Lineage, Perfect World
I think you're wrong here. Some "F2P" games are pretty decent.
I recommend you look at street gears for example, I even made a thread about it. It's a decent game and -so far- only cosmetic items have been available which in no way impact gameplay whatsoever.
There's other examples of F2P games that haven't gone overboard on F2P items that are decent games. Yes they might be lower budget but they're still very good games.
It sure beats the hell out of spending 50$ on a P2P game each time just to be disappointed every time. If P2P games start using demos and OPEN betas I might agree with P2P being the preferred platform again, but until then I have somewhat changed my position on this.
I'm 100% opposed to tactics like SoE used, namely introducing Cash shops into P2P and I'm also opposed to Cash shop games that unbalance gameplay, but I'm not opposed to F2P games that offer some cosmetic items if that means I can try the game out for free instead of having to spend 50$ on every new piece of trash P2P game that comes out just to try it.
It's the lesser of the 2 evils for the moment.
This is how I see it as well.
Free to play they are- However they are pay to enjoy and pay to win, They might as well call the games "Free 2 try" not F2P, F2P mmorpgs are like an mmorpg that offers a long term free trial to gamers but thats it. If you want to compete without devoting your life to the game and usually the thousands of hours of boring uninspired pure grind based game play you need to spend $300-400 dollars a year on that PoS game.
Sword of the new world is a prime example of that, In a game where 1 AR and 1 DR makes all the difference in the world, and you can get some stats off cash shop temporary equipment along with Regen effects and more HP thats inbalanced bull right there. And its not just SoTNW all F2P games are this way. I am so sick of people ether being blind or not seeing it.
I understand if you are one of those people who is broke or has no money and wants to play something 100% free, Yes you can play it and maybe if you love to grind you can even enjoy it. But for the most part its crap.
You can say Atlantica and Runes of magic are differnet but they are not, Atlantica has a death system where your hard worked mercenaries die after a year. That means after a year you have to grind them all the way back up again, on top of an arleady bad grind as it is.
Runes of magic only hides the grind by "offering" a sub job system like FFXI but unlike FFXI the sub job can be leveled to max, Sure its optional but how optional will it be when you want to raid and you dont have a sub job? probably not very. The problem is these games are made so that the "norm" or the standard" in the end game FORCES you to almost use the cash shop very regularly. In some games it gets to the point where you reach a raid they EXPECT you to own cash shop items to progress tru bosses and stuff, they dont even ask "Do you guys have" they just say "ok guys use your X item" as if EVERYONE had ot have it. The way the endgame is set up, the way the game in general is set up is to make players spend tons of money later on and no money up front. This is why I try F2P games but never stick with them. The only F2P game I ever got to end game on was SotNW and It was so easy to see their scam sold my account to some website idc what they do with it frankly, TBH I would be happier if all the shitty Korean grind fest games would just shut down.
Tired of item mall (Store) MMO's yet?
No not really, I don't play them so can't really get tired of something I aint playing now can I, may I suggest you perhaps do the same, then you don't need to get tired of them.
I would also suggest to play a Subscription based MMO as that is what you think is better.
The only F2P model that I ever liked was Puzzle Pirates. Dubloon server and you can easily use ingame gold to buy dubloons to pay for services. Sure you can use real money to buy the dubloons but it's not that expensive to buy it with ingame gold either (at least when I played it).
Unfortunately Puzzle Pirates isn't my cup of tea.
yeah there is ONE good F2P imo but its not an mmorpg.
Exteel by Anet Fair prices, Iv said it a lot before, I spent 30 dollars on the game ONCE over a year ago now. I still have 6 dollars left in NCcons and I have basically every part I could want for a speed/balance Mech. You can earn parts and points simply by winning, and winning is not hard at all even without money. Thats a good F2P but its a F2P 3rd person shooter.
Can't really say I'm tired of them as I refuse to play them. I can say that I am tired of developers using that payment model as it is nothing but a scam.
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic
Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW
Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike
Loved: Star Wars Galaxies
Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.