Everyone has different things that they say "breaks immersion". For some people it's zoning. Zoning doesn't break my immersion one bit.
For me, it's spending real money in a game. If I'm playing a game, the very last thing I want to do is worry about a budget, how much real life money I'm spending, if an item is worth the amount of real life money I'm spending on it, how much money i spent this month, converting game currency to real life money, lets see I paid 5 dollars for 375 klurgs, and this potion is 97 klurgs, that means if I buy it I'm paying in real life dollars... Ok, I quit, that sucks.
I really, really, dont' want to keep up with spending 50 cents here, and a 1.75 there.
14.95 for the month, forget about money and play the game? That's a deal.
Everyone has different things that they say "breaks immersion". For some people it's zoning. Zoning doesn't break my immersion one bit. For me, it's spending real money in a game. If I'm playing a game, the very last thing I want to do is worry about a budget, how much real life money I'm spending, if an item is worth the amount of real life money I'm spending on it, how much money i spent this month, converting game currency to real life money, lets see I paid 5 dollars for 375 klurgs, and this potion is 97 klurgs, that means if I buy it I'm paying in real life dollars... Ok, I quit, that sucks. I really, really, dont' want to keep up with spending 50 cents here, and a 1.75 there. 14.95 for the month, forget about money and play the game? That's a deal.
Just have question to ask if an MMO had sub plan where 14.99 a month would get mostly every thing you need from a item shop would you play it ? Cash shop would have fluff stuff like pets,mounts and costumes but the important items like xp potions or crafting items have a monthly limit that everybody was on the same level.Would you play it?
Runes of Magic 2.5 million Subs Peefect World supposely 30 million Subs Runescape 5 million active users Guild Wars- 2 million active users
etc,etc.Clearly their is market for those games.Do know what is the one complaint AoC and War.It is the game is dying and people are leaving.Item shops mmo solve the biggest problem for mmo.MMO are social machine the more people the more better off the game is.I guarantee if Vanguard was to go free to play it would be become one of top mmos on the market.Not ever mmo was meant to 14.99 a month.Item shops have their place.I will put this it this What happens in the future if you to play ToR,Darkfall,WoW,EvE and DC online at the same time.It would be smart that some games go to free to play model of some sort.I know i can play Guild Wars,DDO,Atlanica and WOW at the same time. Companies need to realize you won't beat WoW,You won't beat a good star Wars game,You will not beat a good Final Fantasy game.So why compete against them?Why not use a model that lets you play their game and your game.Not once would i have even consider playing DDO with fee because they are games i like way better now that is free i will play it,If i like it enough i will spend some money. DDO went from bottom middle of pack P2P game to the everybody second to play MMO.
Sub counts have no relevance in free to play games. If people can create as many multiple free accounts as they like and not play any of them they still count to the total. Also every account people create to logon and see the game a few mins count to the total as well. Those numbers are garbage.
Everyone has different things that they say "breaks immersion". For some people it's zoning. Zoning doesn't break my immersion one bit. For me, it's spending real money in a game. If I'm playing a game, the very last thing I want to do is worry about a budget, how much real life money I'm spending, if an item is worth the amount of real life money I'm spending on it, how much money i spent this month, converting game currency to real life money, lets see I paid 5 dollars for 375 klurgs, and this potion is 97 klurgs, that means if I buy it I'm paying in real life dollars... Ok, I quit, that sucks. I really, really, dont' want to keep up with spending 50 cents here, and a 1.75 there. 14.95 for the month, forget about money and play the game? That's a deal.
Just have question to ask if an MMO had sub plan where 14.99 a month would get mostly every thing you need from a item shop would you play it ? Cash shop would have fluff stuff like pets,mounts and costumes but the important items like xp potions or crafting items have a monthly limit that everybody was on the same level.Would you play it?
No I would not. Buying items for real life money removes you from the game world and ruins immersion. PC RPG games are meant to be played to obtain items, buying an item is only playing dress up .. not gaming. It ruins what games are. When I a game has an item shop, it is no longer a PC rpg game, it is now a digital store.
No I would not. Buying items for real life money removes you from the game world and ruins immersion. PC RPG games are meant to be played to obtain items, buying an item is only playing dress up .. not gaming. It ruins what games are. When I a game has an item shop, it is no longer a PC rpg game, it is now a digital store.
How did you feel about Dragon Age advertising DL content on day one at the campsite then?
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Runes of Magic 2.5 million Subs Peefect World supposely 30 million Subs Runescape 5 million active users Guild Wars- 2 million active users
etc,etc.Clearly their is market for those games.Do know what is the one complaint AoC and War.It is the game is dying and people are leaving.Item shops mmo solve the biggest problem for mmo.MMO are social machine the more people the more better off the game is.I guarantee if Vanguard was to go free to play it would be become one of top mmos on the market.Not ever mmo was meant to 14.99 a month.Item shops have their place.I will put this it this What happens in the future if you to play ToR,Darkfall,WoW,EvE and DC online at the same time.It would be smart that some games go to free to play model of some sort.I know i can play Guild Wars,DDO,Atlanica and WOW at the same time. Companies need to realize you won't beat WoW,You won't beat a good star Wars game,You will not beat a good Final Fantasy game.So why compete against them?Why not use a model that lets you play their game and your game.Not once would i have even consider playing DDO with fee because they are games i like way better now that is free i will play it,If i like it enough i will spend some money. DDO went from bottom middle of pack P2P game to the everybody second to play MMO.
It's funny how everyone in these forums say they need games to be easy and fast to leveling in and have little challenge like grouping because they are casual. Then we have post like these that state people would like free to play so they can play multiple MMOs at a time, thought people were casual? How do they have time to play multiple at a time when they can take any time in one to play? ADD crowd if you ask me.
Everyone has different things that they say "breaks immersion". For some people it's zoning. Zoning doesn't break my immersion one bit. For me, it's spending real money in a game. If I'm playing a game, the very last thing I want to do is worry about a budget, how much real life money I'm spending, if an item is worth the amount of real life money I'm spending on it, how much money i spent this month, converting game currency to real life money, lets see I paid 5 dollars for 375 klurgs, and this potion is 97 klurgs, that means if I buy it I'm paying in real life dollars... Ok, I quit, that sucks. I really, really, dont' want to keep up with spending 50 cents here, and a 1.75 there. 14.95 for the month, forget about money and play the game? That's a deal.
Just have question to ask if an MMO had sub plan where 14.99 a month would get mostly every thing you need from a item shop would you play it ? Cash shop would have fluff stuff like pets,mounts and costumes but the important items like xp potions or crafting items have a monthly limit that everybody was on the same level.Would you play it?
I wouldn't consider a mount "fluff". Travel is very important in an MMORPG. it determines the time spent to get to a quest or to a place to grind mobs, and everything in an MMORPG is based on time.
I want to earn my xp, so no potions that boost xp. If we're paying 14.99 then why would we buy xp potions?
I'd assume everyone would buy as many xp potions as the 14.99 would allow them, so why make them pay 14.99 then spend the in game money on xp potions?
Seems silly, wouldn't you just set it to a proper xp rate, since everyone is paying 14.99?
I also want to earn my gear, so no out of game cash to buy gear.
Again, if everyone is paying 14.99 why have me buy in game cash with real money, then use the in game cash to buy my gear? Wouldn't you just set the loot drop appropriately so as I play the game I get gear drops, or enough in game money to buy gear?
If you mean 14.99 sub, and cash shop for fluff like pets that do ZERO damage, and give ZERO buffs, in other words you can look at them and that's all they do, and costumes, then sure.
Costumes and pets that do nothing as far as game mechanics would not affect the game play.
But mounts in the cash shop? Definitley not, that affects game play.
No I would not. Buying items for real life money removes you from the game world and ruins immersion. PC RPG games are meant to be played to obtain items, buying an item is only playing dress up .. not gaming. It ruins what games are. When I a game has an item shop, it is no longer a PC rpg game, it is now a digital store.
How did you feel about Dragon Age advertising DL content on day one at the campsite then?
I read about that and that made my decision to not pick up that game. How did I feel about it? I will tell you how I feel, greed is running through the PC gaming industry at this time. The greed is ruining the games. It started with The Sims in single player and SOE in P2P MMOs. You use to be able to buy a game and enjoy it for the price you pay. Now everyone wants to squeeze more out of their players. In capitalism companies will push as far as they can until the consumer says stop. I said stop already with my wallet, I quit buying any of these cash shop games and I didn't buy Dragon Age because of ads in game. That ruins my gaming right there, no thanks.
Unfortunately its the new business model and a way for companies to get a far more lucrative return on their investment. They are not going away anytime soon; matter of fact, they will continue to increase. In the end old school gamers like me and others are simply going to stop playing all together. Not one person can put a legitimate argument together in favor for MT's and clearly state that they are less costly than a monthly sub.
People I know that have played MT based games have spent far more monthly than they would have on a single monthly sub fee. Welcome to the future were console mechanics are being pushed over the edge to PC gaming. Hell, even Dragon Age had two DLC at release. I just saw on the PSN store last night that EA is selling a DLC for nudity for the game Saboteur. These companies are taking it to a all new low and the SHEEPIL are lining up in droves to be fed.
Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box. ~ Italian proverb
Everyone has different things that they say "breaks immersion". For some people it's zoning. Zoning doesn't break my immersion one bit. For me, it's spending real money in a game. If I'm playing a game, the very last thing I want to do is worry about a budget, how much real life money I'm spending, if an item is worth the amount of real life money I'm spending on it, how much money i spent this month, converting game currency to real life money, lets see I paid 5 dollars for 375 klurgs, and this potion is 97 klurgs, that means if I buy it I'm paying in real life dollars... Ok, I quit, that sucks. I really, really, dont' want to keep up with spending 50 cents here, and a 1.75 there. 14.95 for the month, forget about money and play the game? That's a deal.
Just have question to ask if an MMO had sub plan where 14.99 a month would get mostly every thing you need from a item shop would you play it ? Cash shop would have fluff stuff like pets,mounts and costumes but the important items like xp potions or crafting items have a monthly limit that everybody was on the same level.Would you play it?
I wouldn't consider a mount "fluff". Travel is very important in an MMORPG. it determines the time spent to get to a quest or to a place to grind mobs, and everything in an MMORPG is based on time.
I want to earn my xp, so no potions that boost xp. If we're paying 14.99 then why would we buy xp potions?
I'd assume everyone would buy as many xp potions as the 14.99 would allow them, so why make them pay 14.99 then spend the in game money on xp potions?
Seems silly, wouldn't you just set it to a proper xp rate, since everyone is paying 14.99?
I also want to earn my gear, so no out of game cash to buy gear.
Again, if everyone is paying 14.99 why have me buy in game cash with real money, then use the in game cash to buy my gear? Wouldn't you just set the loot drop appropriately so as I play the game I get gear drops, or enough in game money to buy gear?
If you mean 14.99 sub, and cash shop for fluff like pets that do ZERO damage, and give ZERO buffs, in other words you can look at them and that's all they do, and costumes, then sure.
Costumes and pets that do nothing as far as game mechanics would not affect the game play.
But mounts in the cash shop? Definitley not, that affects game play.
This post above hits the nail on the head. If you allow cash shops in your gaming then it promotes bad development behavior. Instead of fixing the xp curve or drop rate, why do that when you can have people pay extra for things?
Runes of Magic 2.5 million Subs Peefect World supposely 30 million Subs Runescape 5 million active users Guild Wars- 2 million active users
etc,etc.Clearly their is market for those games.Do know what is the one complaint AoC and War.It is the game is dying and people are leaving.Item shops mmo solve the biggest problem for mmo.MMO are social machine the more people the more better off the game is.I guarantee if Vanguard was to go free to play it would be become one of top mmos on the market.Not ever mmo was meant to 14.99 a month.Item shops have their place.I will put this it this What happens in the future if you to play ToR,Darkfall,WoW,EvE and DC online at the same time.It would be smart that some games go to free to play model of some sort.I know i can play Guild Wars,DDO,Atlanica and WOW at the same time. Companies need to realize you won't beat WoW,You won't beat a good star Wars game,You will not beat a good Final Fantasy game.So why compete against them?Why not use a model that lets you play their game and your game.Not once would i have even consider playing DDO with fee because they are games i like way better now that is free i will play it,If i like it enough i will spend some money. DDO went from bottom middle of pack P2P game to the everybody second to play MMO.
Runes of Magic and Perfect World don't have subscription programs. They are pure f2p cash shop games. And their total users they claimed are non unique and not necessary to be active. According to Jagex, runescape have 110+ mil accounts created but as you can see they only have a few millions active 1 and only 1+ million sub according to Guinness those what you called 'subs' from Runes of Magic and Perfect World are just jokes. Perfect World is merging servers. This tells us they are dying...
Runescape has 1+ million subs. No argument with that. They are 1 of, if not the most successful f2p mmorpg but they don't have cash shop.
Guild Wars is buy to play. You can argue they have somewhat of a cash shop but all the goods there are 1 time buy to play things. This kind of "cash shop" (if you consider it one) is similiar to what DDO is offereing now. They are no different to expansion packs. I think DDO may do well with this kind of 'cash shop' but their experience potions things may not give them much money.
I'll consider Maple Story a semi successful cash shop game. Although the numbers they provided is very questionalbe they are probably making some decent money until recently... They have changed from selling pretty much just cosmetic items like clothes, hairs, pets to items affecting game balance now. It is a sign they are on the downward spiral.
Runes of Magic 2.5 million Subs Peefect World supposely 30 million Subs Runescape 5 million active users Guild Wars- 2 million active users
etc,etc.Clearly their is market for those games.Do know what is the one complaint AoC and War.It is the game is dying and people are leaving.Item shops mmo solve the biggest problem for mmo.MMO are social machine the more people the more better off the game is.I guarantee if Vanguard was to go free to play it would be become one of top mmos on the market.Not ever mmo was meant to 14.99 a month.Item shops have their place.I will put this it this What happens in the future if you to play ToR,Darkfall,WoW,EvE and DC online at the same time.It would be smart that some games go to free to play model of some sort.I know i can play Guild Wars,DDO,Atlanica and WOW at the same time. Companies need to realize you won't beat WoW,You won't beat a good star Wars game,You will not beat a good Final Fantasy game.So why compete against them?Why not use a model that lets you play their game and your game.Not once would i have even consider playing DDO with fee because they are games i like way better now that is free i will play it,If i like it enough i will spend some money. DDO went from bottom middle of pack P2P game to the everybody second to play MMO.
Sub counts have no relevance in free to play games. If people can create as many multiple free accounts as they like and not play any of them they still count to the total. Also every account people create to logon and see the game a few mins count to the total as well. Those numbers are garbage.
Common you are not naive to think that numbers are totally useless.Are the sub counts in P2P to play games any better?Sub counts show general interest in a game.Active numbers of players are better and if you notice i had some examples of that in Runescape and Guild Wars.My biggest point is you want to get yourself a large numbers players have free to play model.Why do you think game offer free trials? To get people to try the game,what happens if your game is already free you have gotten pass the natural barrier that keeps some players from trying your game
I wouldn't consider a mount "fluff". Travel is very important in an MMORPG. it determines the time spent to get to a quest or to a place to grind mobs, and everything in an MMORPG is based on time. Costumes and pets that do nothing as far as game mechanics would not affect the game play. But mounts in the cash shop? Definitley not, that affects game play.
To be fair, I've never seen a game where the only mount available was via RMT. If that were the case, it would certainly be a balance issue and to be avoided.
It's far more likely that there would be in-game horses but that you could get a cooler looking (but functionally identical) mount like an undead horse or something from the item-shop.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
I am always bemused when people talk about F2P being wrong or evil. They developed in a different culture in response to different needs. Take Korea for example (only because of what I've observed there). The vast majority of gaming is done in PC bangs (literally PC rooms). There are even 'couple chairs' set up in some of the fancier PC rooms. There are anumber of reasons for this. In Korean culture teens and young adults usually do not socialize at home in fact the concept of a dinner party at home is pretty unusual, you would usually take someone out to dinner if you were entertaining friends. Most adults live at home until they are married. Koreans tend to do things in groups more so than in Western culture. The second factor is Koreans go for 'cute' a lot more than Westerners do. Even the level of cute in my Korean friend's cars would be too much if I were not actually in Korea and knew the Korean love of 'cute'. This also extends to some gambling sites in Korea. GoStop is a popular gambling game in Korea and many popular sites allow you to buy items to dress up your avatar either from your winnings or through the item shop. (Because of Korean law you cannot gamble actual money but you are allowed to 'win prizes') Now most P2P games require you to purchase the game and load it onto your computer, but if you're playing at a PC room that is not really an option . If you want to play something other than WOW and a select few other games, you might get lucky and the PC room will have your game of choice on the machines, if not your out of luck. Whereas for F2P games the computers are set up to enter game hubs for popular F2P games where you can start playing even without downloading the game. Korean broadband is fast enough to support this with no problem. This is just a snapshot of what I have seen in Korea. This is the environment where many F2P games are developed. They will continue to be developed to meet the market. They are not a cynical plan aimed at your hard earned , they are catering to their desired market base and work well for MMO players in that ORIGINAL market.
If Koreans keep thinking Europeans and North Americans like their gambling and buy to win style games then they are going to go bankrupt very soon. There are gamblers in western countries, many high rollers too but they will ask for the odds of winning as they are mandated to be provided by casinoes. If you Koreans don't respond with the exact odds they will be considered scammers.
Yeah, I hate item shops, for me they epitomise everything that is wrong about the games industry right now. I'm not stupid and realise that games companies are at the end of a day a business that needs to turn a proft, but it used to be that in order to make that profit they would try and make the best game possible, the attitude seemed to be if they got the 'art' of making a fun game right then the results, in terms of sales and profit, would take care of themselves.
Somehow in recent years something went terribly wrong, the MMO industry has devolved to the point where it looks like most new releases are going to bleed their customers dry for the cost of a box+sub+mt's. It isn't just MMO's either, thanks to the mighty 360 even some single player games are now released with the minimum amount of content and then you are expected to pay more for extra bits via DLC.
Somewhere along the way the people who make these games just got far to greedy, and it is the sheeplike behaviour of customers that is allowing it to happen. It is probably far to late now to save the games industry. We now live in an 'iTune' world where we can look forward to paying more and more for game content, yet receive less out of the box. We no longer own games, we simply rent them for a monthly fee. Whilst we as customers allow this to happen, the games companies will keep pushing those boundaries. Think about it, when SOE introduced the item store into EQ2, if everyone cancelled their subs then they would have had to remove it. If nobody buys TOR when it gets released with the inevitable item store, then again they would be forced to remove it. But no, people will continue to get herded into the shops and buy these games like the sheep they are.
I honestly believe that the best thing that can happen to this industry is for the big boys to go bust. I'd like to see nothing more that the likes of Activision/Blizzard, EA, SOE etc. go bust and all their developments houses closed down. That way the devs can be free to setup their own little dev studios again and go back to making games for the sake of the gameplay rather than just being all about balancing the books.
I wouldn't consider a mount "fluff". Travel is very important in an MMORPG. it determines the time spent to get to a quest or to a place to grind mobs, and everything in an MMORPG is based on time. Costumes and pets that do nothing as far as game mechanics would not affect the game play. But mounts in the cash shop? Definitley not, that affects game play.
To be fair, I've never seen a game where the only mount available was via RMT. If that were the case, it would certainly be a balance issue and to be avoided.
It's far more likely that there would be in-game horses but that you could get a cooler looking (but functionally identical) mount like an undead horse or something from the item-shop.
Mounts come from cash shop in Atlantica Online. Not only do you have to pay real money it is not necessary you will get one. They come in a boxes with a lot of other items. Whenever you buy such a box you get a random item out of the box. If you are lucky you get a mount. Otherwise you may get crap. Each box costs $10 real money and the odds, although never revealed was rumored to be over 1:30. Talking about paying $300 to get a mount.... Go figure how well they are doing...
They may "need" to , but they won't die out. The F2P model with an item shop to pay for the game is a very popular model in the far East and it is gaining traction here in the West.
Of course its fueled on greed. OP is delisuional if he thinks game developers are motivated by anything other than money, every business is motivated by money and when you're spending more than a millino to develop a game, you'd better believe its a business and not a labor of love.
Item shops will continue to invade P2P games as well, because its an extra revenue stream like selling t-shirts or something. Difference is of course, whether or not they impact the game play or not.
As for "wasting" development resources to create fluff items, its not a waste if it brings in more revenue, which is ulitmately what all new content in MMO's is designed to do, either bring in or maintain revenue streams.
Companies will do whatever it takes to maximize revenue, including making games with features that are more appealing (and therefore more profitable) to the casual market (see WOW). I don't care for the trend, and play games with a bit more appeal to my tastes, but recognize the trend isn't likely to go away.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Despite the views of most players, I really like the item shop idea...as long as items in the shop can be obtained in-game in some manner too. I think it gives people without a lot of time to play a way to keep up with the hardcore grinders. Runes of Magic did it pretty well, I think; you could get items gifted to you from the item shop from other players by paying them gold on a per-diamond basis(diamonds are the currency of the item shop).
I wouldn't consider a mount "fluff". Travel is very important in an MMORPG. it determines the time spent to get to a quest or to a place to grind mobs, and everything in an MMORPG is based on time. Costumes and pets that do nothing as far as game mechanics would not affect the game play. But mounts in the cash shop? Definitley not, that affects game play.
To be fair, I've never seen a game where the only mount available was via RMT. If that were the case, it would certainly be a balance issue and to be avoided.
It's far more likely that there would be in-game horses but that you could get a cooler looking (but functionally identical) mount like an undead horse or something from the item-shop.
Mounts come from cash shop in Atlantica Online. Not only do you have to pay real money it is not necessary you will get one. They come in a boxes with a lot of other items. Whenever you buy such a box you get a random item out of the box. If you are lucky you get a mount. Otherwise you may get crap. Each box costs $10 real money and the odds, although never revealed was rumored to be over 1:30. Talking about paying $300 to get a mount.... Go figure how well they are doing...
Pfft. That's utter extortion.
I'm surprised they don't get spanked by some sort of anti-gambling laws.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
I wouldn't consider a mount "fluff". Travel is very important in an MMORPG. it determines the time spent to get to a quest or to a place to grind mobs, and everything in an MMORPG is based on time. Costumes and pets that do nothing as far as game mechanics would not affect the game play. But mounts in the cash shop? Definitley not, that affects game play.
To be fair, I've never seen a game where the only mount available was via RMT. If that were the case, it would certainly be a balance issue and to be avoided.
It's far more likely that there would be in-game horses but that you could get a cooler looking (but functionally identical) mount like an undead horse or something from the item-shop.
If you have to get a mount in game, and then you can pay real money to turn the mount into a giant lizard, with no stat differnece, just looks, this would not affect balance.
If you can buy a mount with real money and use it for travel, this affects balance.
You are basically paying real money for faster xp gain.
In other words, I grind a thousand mobs to get my mount.
While I'm doing that, you paid money, and have a mount. Not only are you not grinding those thousand mobs for the mount, you are now gaining xp faster because of saved travel time.
the thousand mobs you grind are now used for better gear, and you are now making xp faster than me becuase you have a mount, AND better gear, and you got there because you paid rl money.
I wouldn't consider a mount "fluff". Travel is very important in an MMORPG. it determines the time spent to get to a quest or to a place to grind mobs, and everything in an MMORPG is based on time. Costumes and pets that do nothing as far as game mechanics would not affect the game play. But mounts in the cash shop? Definitley not, that affects game play.
To be fair, I've never seen a game where the only mount available was via RMT. If that were the case, it would certainly be a balance issue and to be avoided.
It's far more likely that there would be in-game horses but that you could get a cooler looking (but functionally identical) mount like an undead horse or something from the item-shop.
Mounts come from cash shop in Atlantica Online. Not only do you have to pay real money it is not necessary you will get one. They come in a boxes with a lot of other items. Whenever you buy such a box you get a random item out of the box. If you are lucky you get a mount. Otherwise you may get crap. Each box costs $10 real money and the odds, although never revealed was rumored to be over 1:30. Talking about paying $300 to get a mount.... Go figure how well they are doing...
Pfft. That's utter extortion.
I'm surprised they don't get spanked by some sort of anti-gambling laws.
They are not gambling because no real money changes hands. All cash shop items are virtual and have no real world monetary values.
I wouldn't consider a mount "fluff". Travel is very important in an MMORPG. it determines the time spent to get to a quest or to a place to grind mobs, and everything in an MMORPG is based on time. Costumes and pets that do nothing as far as game mechanics would not affect the game play. But mounts in the cash shop? Definitley not, that affects game play.
To be fair, I've never seen a game where the only mount available was via RMT. If that were the case, it would certainly be a balance issue and to be avoided.
It's far more likely that there would be in-game horses but that you could get a cooler looking (but functionally identical) mount like an undead horse or something from the item-shop.
Mounts come from cash shop in Atlantica Online. Not only do you have to pay real money it is not necessary you will get one. They come in a boxes with a lot of other items. Whenever you buy such a box you get a random item out of the box. If you are lucky you get a mount. Otherwise you may get crap. Each box costs $10 real money and the odds, although never revealed was rumored to be over 1:30. Talking about paying $300 to get a mount.... Go figure how well they are doing...
Pfft. That's utter extortion.
I'm surprised they don't get spanked by some sort of anti-gambling laws.
if you could turn in your mount in the game for 20 real life bucks, they would.
Everyone has different things that they say "breaks immersion". For some people it's zoning. Zoning doesn't break my immersion one bit. For me, it's spending real money in a game. If I'm playing a game, the very last thing I want to do is worry about a budget, how much real life money I'm spending, if an item is worth the amount of real life money I'm spending on it, how much money i spent this month, converting game currency to real life money, lets see I paid 5 dollars for 375 klurgs, and this potion is 97 klurgs, that means if I buy it I'm paying in real life dollars... Ok, I quit, that sucks. I really, really, dont' want to keep up with spending 50 cents here, and a 1.75 there. 14.95 for the month, forget about money and play the game? That's a deal.
Just have question to ask if an MMO had sub plan where 14.99 a month would get mostly every thing you need from a item shop would you play it ? Cash shop would have fluff stuff like pets,mounts and costumes but the important items like xp potions or crafting items have a monthly limit that everybody was on the same level.Would you play it?
I wouldn't consider a mount "fluff". Travel is very important in an MMORPG. it determines the time spent to get to a quest or to a place to grind mobs, and everything in an MMORPG is based on time.
I want to earn my xp, so no potions that boost xp. If we're paying 14.99 then why would we buy xp potions?
I'd assume everyone would buy as many xp potions as the 14.99 would allow them, so why make them pay 14.99 then spend the in game money on xp potions?
Seems silly, wouldn't you just set it to a proper xp rate, since everyone is paying 14.99?
I also want to earn my gear, so no out of game cash to buy gear.
Again, if everyone is paying 14.99 why have me buy in game cash with real money, then use the in game cash to buy my gear? Wouldn't you just set the loot drop appropriately so as I play the game I get gear drops, or enough in game money to buy gear?
If you mean 14.99 sub, and cash shop for fluff like pets that do ZERO damage, and give ZERO buffs, in other words you can look at them and that's all they do, and costumes, then sure.
Costumes and pets that do nothing as far as game mechanics would not affect the game play.
But mounts in the cash shop? Definitley not, that affects game play.
I don't want to keep on making fantasy scenarios for a imaginary game does not exists,I mount would be fluff item if can get one easy ingame.The game would already have proper xp rate,monthly limit on xp potions is so that you could have a fair system where everbody is playing because they would a lesser xp potions for free to players.
Theory is to create hybrid format where players could pay 14.99 a month and get quality and stable game while having a free to play model as well.It would be kinda like having cable.The superior package gives you showtime,hbo,etc,the basic package gives you just couple of channels.If you want to watch hbo on demand it comes with superior package for free,If you have basic cable you can pay to watch something on Hbo on demand.
You can create a model like that in mmo but yes it means putting in some artifical controls to make it happen.The funny thing is people never question server changes,race changes,class changes when it is just easy to put something game to let this happen.All i am saying you find a way to have a mix model where those who want to pay month can,those who want to play free can you will have something pretty good.The best method would probably be having a item shop with a limit.
As for Gamer ADD thing,I am suppose to play one game at a time and one game only?Can't one Monday you feel like playing WoW,Tuesday AoC, Wednesday War,Thursday Madden,Friday CoD:MW,Saturday Mario Bros,Sunday Street fighter.I have varied tasted in games,I have varied taste in mmos if that is ADD fine.whatever
Comments
Everyone has different things that they say "breaks immersion". For some people it's zoning. Zoning doesn't break my immersion one bit.
For me, it's spending real money in a game. If I'm playing a game, the very last thing I want to do is worry about a budget, how much real life money I'm spending, if an item is worth the amount of real life money I'm spending on it, how much money i spent this month, converting game currency to real life money, lets see I paid 5 dollars for 375 klurgs, and this potion is 97 klurgs, that means if I buy it I'm paying in real life dollars... Ok, I quit, that sucks.
I really, really, dont' want to keep up with spending 50 cents here, and a 1.75 there.
14.95 for the month, forget about money and play the game? That's a deal.
Just have question to ask if an MMO had sub plan where 14.99 a month would get mostly every thing you need from a item shop would you play it ? Cash shop would have fluff stuff like pets,mounts and costumes but the important items like xp potions or crafting items have a monthly limit that everybody was on the same level.Would you play it?
Sub counts have no relevance in free to play games. If people can create as many multiple free accounts as they like and not play any of them they still count to the total. Also every account people create to logon and see the game a few mins count to the total as well. Those numbers are garbage.
Just have question to ask if an MMO had sub plan where 14.99 a month would get mostly every thing you need from a item shop would you play it ? Cash shop would have fluff stuff like pets,mounts and costumes but the important items like xp potions or crafting items have a monthly limit that everybody was on the same level.Would you play it?
No I would not. Buying items for real life money removes you from the game world and ruins immersion. PC RPG games are meant to be played to obtain items, buying an item is only playing dress up .. not gaming. It ruins what games are. When I a game has an item shop, it is no longer a PC rpg game, it is now a digital store.
How did you feel about Dragon Age advertising DL content on day one at the campsite then?
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It's funny how everyone in these forums say they need games to be easy and fast to leveling in and have little challenge like grouping because they are casual. Then we have post like these that state people would like free to play so they can play multiple MMOs at a time, thought people were casual? How do they have time to play multiple at a time when they can take any time in one to play? ADD crowd if you ask me.
Just have question to ask if an MMO had sub plan where 14.99 a month would get mostly every thing you need from a item shop would you play it ? Cash shop would have fluff stuff like pets,mounts and costumes but the important items like xp potions or crafting items have a monthly limit that everybody was on the same level.Would you play it?
I wouldn't consider a mount "fluff". Travel is very important in an MMORPG. it determines the time spent to get to a quest or to a place to grind mobs, and everything in an MMORPG is based on time.
I want to earn my xp, so no potions that boost xp. If we're paying 14.99 then why would we buy xp potions?
I'd assume everyone would buy as many xp potions as the 14.99 would allow them, so why make them pay 14.99 then spend the in game money on xp potions?
Seems silly, wouldn't you just set it to a proper xp rate, since everyone is paying 14.99?
I also want to earn my gear, so no out of game cash to buy gear.
Again, if everyone is paying 14.99 why have me buy in game cash with real money, then use the in game cash to buy my gear? Wouldn't you just set the loot drop appropriately so as I play the game I get gear drops, or enough in game money to buy gear?
If you mean 14.99 sub, and cash shop for fluff like pets that do ZERO damage, and give ZERO buffs, in other words you can look at them and that's all they do, and costumes, then sure.
Costumes and pets that do nothing as far as game mechanics would not affect the game play.
But mounts in the cash shop? Definitley not, that affects game play.
How did you feel about Dragon Age advertising DL content on day one at the campsite then?
I read about that and that made my decision to not pick up that game. How did I feel about it? I will tell you how I feel, greed is running through the PC gaming industry at this time. The greed is ruining the games. It started with The Sims in single player and SOE in P2P MMOs. You use to be able to buy a game and enjoy it for the price you pay. Now everyone wants to squeeze more out of their players. In capitalism companies will push as far as they can until the consumer says stop. I said stop already with my wallet, I quit buying any of these cash shop games and I didn't buy Dragon Age because of ads in game. That ruins my gaming right there, no thanks.
Unfortunately its the new business model and a way for companies to get a far more lucrative return on their investment. They are not going away anytime soon; matter of fact, they will continue to increase. In the end old school gamers like me and others are simply going to stop playing all together. Not one person can put a legitimate argument together in favor for MT's and clearly state that they are less costly than a monthly sub.
People I know that have played MT based games have spent far more monthly than they would have on a single monthly sub fee. Welcome to the future were console mechanics are being pushed over the edge to PC gaming. Hell, even Dragon Age had two DLC at release. I just saw on the PSN store last night that EA is selling a DLC for nudity for the game Saboteur. These companies are taking it to a all new low and the SHEEPIL are lining up in droves to be fed.
Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box. ~ Italian proverb
Just have question to ask if an MMO had sub plan where 14.99 a month would get mostly every thing you need from a item shop would you play it ? Cash shop would have fluff stuff like pets,mounts and costumes but the important items like xp potions or crafting items have a monthly limit that everybody was on the same level.Would you play it?
I wouldn't consider a mount "fluff". Travel is very important in an MMORPG. it determines the time spent to get to a quest or to a place to grind mobs, and everything in an MMORPG is based on time.
I want to earn my xp, so no potions that boost xp. If we're paying 14.99 then why would we buy xp potions?
I'd assume everyone would buy as many xp potions as the 14.99 would allow them, so why make them pay 14.99 then spend the in game money on xp potions?
Seems silly, wouldn't you just set it to a proper xp rate, since everyone is paying 14.99?
I also want to earn my gear, so no out of game cash to buy gear.
Again, if everyone is paying 14.99 why have me buy in game cash with real money, then use the in game cash to buy my gear? Wouldn't you just set the loot drop appropriately so as I play the game I get gear drops, or enough in game money to buy gear?
If you mean 14.99 sub, and cash shop for fluff like pets that do ZERO damage, and give ZERO buffs, in other words you can look at them and that's all they do, and costumes, then sure.
Costumes and pets that do nothing as far as game mechanics would not affect the game play.
But mounts in the cash shop? Definitley not, that affects game play.
This post above hits the nail on the head. If you allow cash shops in your gaming then it promotes bad development behavior. Instead of fixing the xp curve or drop rate, why do that when you can have people pay extra for things?
Runes of Magic and Perfect World don't have subscription programs. They are pure f2p cash shop games. And their total users they claimed are non unique and not necessary to be active. According to Jagex, runescape have 110+ mil accounts created but as you can see they only have a few millions active 1 and only 1+ million sub according to Guinness those what you called 'subs' from Runes of Magic and Perfect World are just jokes. Perfect World is merging servers. This tells us they are dying...
Runescape has 1+ million subs. No argument with that. They are 1 of, if not the most successful f2p mmorpg but they don't have cash shop.
Guild Wars is buy to play. You can argue they have somewhat of a cash shop but all the goods there are 1 time buy to play things. This kind of "cash shop" (if you consider it one) is similiar to what DDO is offereing now. They are no different to expansion packs. I think DDO may do well with this kind of 'cash shop' but their experience potions things may not give them much money.
I'll consider Maple Story a semi successful cash shop game. Although the numbers they provided is very questionalbe they are probably making some decent money until recently... They have changed from selling pretty much just cosmetic items like clothes, hairs, pets to items affecting game balance now. It is a sign they are on the downward spiral.
Sub counts have no relevance in free to play games. If people can create as many multiple free accounts as they like and not play any of them they still count to the total. Also every account people create to logon and see the game a few mins count to the total as well. Those numbers are garbage.
Common you are not naive to think that numbers are totally useless.Are the sub counts in P2P to play games any better?Sub counts show general interest in a game.Active numbers of players are better and if you notice i had some examples of that in Runescape and Guild Wars.My biggest point is you want to get yourself a large numbers players have free to play model.Why do you think game offer free trials? To get people to try the game,what happens if your game is already free you have gotten pass the natural barrier that keeps some players from trying your game
Cash shops always mean inequality of opportunity. Regardless of what is sold. We have enough inequality in real life. I won't stand for it in a game.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
To be fair, I've never seen a game where the only mount available was via RMT. If that were the case, it would certainly be a balance issue and to be avoided.
It's far more likely that there would be in-game horses but that you could get a cooler looking (but functionally identical) mount like an undead horse or something from the item-shop.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
If Koreans keep thinking Europeans and North Americans like their gambling and buy to win style games then they are going to go bankrupt very soon. There are gamblers in western countries, many high rollers too but they will ask for the odds of winning as they are mandated to be provided by casinoes. If you Koreans don't respond with the exact odds they will be considered scammers.
Yeah, I hate item shops, for me they epitomise everything that is wrong about the games industry right now. I'm not stupid and realise that games companies are at the end of a day a business that needs to turn a proft, but it used to be that in order to make that profit they would try and make the best game possible, the attitude seemed to be if they got the 'art' of making a fun game right then the results, in terms of sales and profit, would take care of themselves.
Somehow in recent years something went terribly wrong, the MMO industry has devolved to the point where it looks like most new releases are going to bleed their customers dry for the cost of a box+sub+mt's. It isn't just MMO's either, thanks to the mighty 360 even some single player games are now released with the minimum amount of content and then you are expected to pay more for extra bits via DLC.
Somewhere along the way the people who make these games just got far to greedy, and it is the sheeplike behaviour of customers that is allowing it to happen. It is probably far to late now to save the games industry. We now live in an 'iTune' world where we can look forward to paying more and more for game content, yet receive less out of the box. We no longer own games, we simply rent them for a monthly fee. Whilst we as customers allow this to happen, the games companies will keep pushing those boundaries. Think about it, when SOE introduced the item store into EQ2, if everyone cancelled their subs then they would have had to remove it. If nobody buys TOR when it gets released with the inevitable item store, then again they would be forced to remove it. But no, people will continue to get herded into the shops and buy these games like the sheep they are.
I honestly believe that the best thing that can happen to this industry is for the big boys to go bust. I'd like to see nothing more that the likes of Activision/Blizzard, EA, SOE etc. go bust and all their developments houses closed down. That way the devs can be free to setup their own little dev studios again and go back to making games for the sake of the gameplay rather than just being all about balancing the books.
To be fair, I've never seen a game where the only mount available was via RMT. If that were the case, it would certainly be a balance issue and to be avoided.
It's far more likely that there would be in-game horses but that you could get a cooler looking (but functionally identical) mount like an undead horse or something from the item-shop.
Mounts come from cash shop in Atlantica Online. Not only do you have to pay real money it is not necessary you will get one. They come in a boxes with a lot of other items. Whenever you buy such a box you get a random item out of the box. If you are lucky you get a mount. Otherwise you may get crap. Each box costs $10 real money and the odds, although never revealed was rumored to be over 1:30. Talking about paying $300 to get a mount.... Go figure how well they are doing...
They may "need" to , but they won't die out. The F2P model with an item shop to pay for the game is a very popular model in the far East and it is gaining traction here in the West.
Of course its fueled on greed. OP is delisuional if he thinks game developers are motivated by anything other than money, every business is motivated by money and when you're spending more than a millino to develop a game, you'd better believe its a business and not a labor of love.
Item shops will continue to invade P2P games as well, because its an extra revenue stream like selling t-shirts or something. Difference is of course, whether or not they impact the game play or not.
As for "wasting" development resources to create fluff items, its not a waste if it brings in more revenue, which is ulitmately what all new content in MMO's is designed to do, either bring in or maintain revenue streams.
Companies will do whatever it takes to maximize revenue, including making games with features that are more appealing (and therefore more profitable) to the casual market (see WOW). I don't care for the trend, and play games with a bit more appeal to my tastes, but recognize the trend isn't likely to go away.
Neither will item shops.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Despite the views of most players, I really like the item shop idea...as long as items in the shop can be obtained in-game in some manner too. I think it gives people without a lot of time to play a way to keep up with the hardcore grinders. Runes of Magic did it pretty well, I think; you could get items gifted to you from the item shop from other players by paying them gold on a per-diamond basis(diamonds are the currency of the item shop).
To be fair, I've never seen a game where the only mount available was via RMT. If that were the case, it would certainly be a balance issue and to be avoided.
It's far more likely that there would be in-game horses but that you could get a cooler looking (but functionally identical) mount like an undead horse or something from the item-shop.
Mounts come from cash shop in Atlantica Online. Not only do you have to pay real money it is not necessary you will get one. They come in a boxes with a lot of other items. Whenever you buy such a box you get a random item out of the box. If you are lucky you get a mount. Otherwise you may get crap. Each box costs $10 real money and the odds, although never revealed was rumored to be over 1:30. Talking about paying $300 to get a mount.... Go figure how well they are doing...
Pfft. That's utter extortion.
I'm surprised they don't get spanked by some sort of anti-gambling laws.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Since AB have added an item shop to WoW its not going away but we will see more and more of it instead.
I would like to see more MMO do the same thing as DDO thou because everyone benefits from it.
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To be fair, I've never seen a game where the only mount available was via RMT. If that were the case, it would certainly be a balance issue and to be avoided.
It's far more likely that there would be in-game horses but that you could get a cooler looking (but functionally identical) mount like an undead horse or something from the item-shop.
If you have to get a mount in game, and then you can pay real money to turn the mount into a giant lizard, with no stat differnece, just looks, this would not affect balance.
If you can buy a mount with real money and use it for travel, this affects balance.
You are basically paying real money for faster xp gain.
In other words, I grind a thousand mobs to get my mount.
While I'm doing that, you paid money, and have a mount. Not only are you not grinding those thousand mobs for the mount, you are now gaining xp faster because of saved travel time.
the thousand mobs you grind are now used for better gear, and you are now making xp faster than me becuase you have a mount, AND better gear, and you got there because you paid rl money.
I definitely would not play that game.
To be fair, I've never seen a game where the only mount available was via RMT. If that were the case, it would certainly be a balance issue and to be avoided.
It's far more likely that there would be in-game horses but that you could get a cooler looking (but functionally identical) mount like an undead horse or something from the item-shop.
Mounts come from cash shop in Atlantica Online. Not only do you have to pay real money it is not necessary you will get one. They come in a boxes with a lot of other items. Whenever you buy such a box you get a random item out of the box. If you are lucky you get a mount. Otherwise you may get crap. Each box costs $10 real money and the odds, although never revealed was rumored to be over 1:30. Talking about paying $300 to get a mount.... Go figure how well they are doing...
Pfft. That's utter extortion.
I'm surprised they don't get spanked by some sort of anti-gambling laws.
They are not gambling because no real money changes hands. All cash shop items are virtual and have no real world monetary values.
To be fair, I've never seen a game where the only mount available was via RMT. If that were the case, it would certainly be a balance issue and to be avoided.
It's far more likely that there would be in-game horses but that you could get a cooler looking (but functionally identical) mount like an undead horse or something from the item-shop.
Mounts come from cash shop in Atlantica Online. Not only do you have to pay real money it is not necessary you will get one. They come in a boxes with a lot of other items. Whenever you buy such a box you get a random item out of the box. If you are lucky you get a mount. Otherwise you may get crap. Each box costs $10 real money and the odds, although never revealed was rumored to be over 1:30. Talking about paying $300 to get a mount.... Go figure how well they are doing...
Pfft. That's utter extortion.
I'm surprised they don't get spanked by some sort of anti-gambling laws.
if you could turn in your mount in the game for 20 real life bucks, they would.
I spend ten, to take a chance at making 20.
Just have question to ask if an MMO had sub plan where 14.99 a month would get mostly every thing you need from a item shop would you play it ? Cash shop would have fluff stuff like pets,mounts and costumes but the important items like xp potions or crafting items have a monthly limit that everybody was on the same level.Would you play it?
I wouldn't consider a mount "fluff". Travel is very important in an MMORPG. it determines the time spent to get to a quest or to a place to grind mobs, and everything in an MMORPG is based on time.
I want to earn my xp, so no potions that boost xp. If we're paying 14.99 then why would we buy xp potions?
I'd assume everyone would buy as many xp potions as the 14.99 would allow them, so why make them pay 14.99 then spend the in game money on xp potions?
Seems silly, wouldn't you just set it to a proper xp rate, since everyone is paying 14.99?
I also want to earn my gear, so no out of game cash to buy gear.
Again, if everyone is paying 14.99 why have me buy in game cash with real money, then use the in game cash to buy my gear? Wouldn't you just set the loot drop appropriately so as I play the game I get gear drops, or enough in game money to buy gear?
If you mean 14.99 sub, and cash shop for fluff like pets that do ZERO damage, and give ZERO buffs, in other words you can look at them and that's all they do, and costumes, then sure.
Costumes and pets that do nothing as far as game mechanics would not affect the game play.
But mounts in the cash shop? Definitley not, that affects game play.
I don't want to keep on making fantasy scenarios for a imaginary game does not exists,I mount would be fluff item if can get one easy ingame.The game would already have proper xp rate,monthly limit on xp potions is so that you could have a fair system where everbody is playing because they would a lesser xp potions for free to players.
Theory is to create hybrid format where players could pay 14.99 a month and get quality and stable game while having a free to play model as well.It would be kinda like having cable.The superior package gives you showtime,hbo,etc,the basic package gives you just couple of channels.If you want to watch hbo on demand it comes with superior package for free,If you have basic cable you can pay to watch something on Hbo on demand.
You can create a model like that in mmo but yes it means putting in some artifical controls to make it happen.The funny thing is people never question server changes,race changes,class changes when it is just easy to put something game to let this happen.All i am saying you find a way to have a mix model where those who want to pay month can,those who want to play free can you will have something pretty good.The best method would probably be having a item shop with a limit.
As for Gamer ADD thing,I am suppose to play one game at a time and one game only?Can't one Monday you feel like playing WoW,Tuesday AoC, Wednesday War,Thursday Madden,Friday CoD:MW,Saturday Mario Bros,Sunday Street fighter.I have varied tasted in games,I have varied taste in mmos if that is ADD fine.whatever