When NCSoft acquired Arena Net, Guild Wars’ developer, Garriott and his team discerned an audience not being served by the traditional subscription-based MMO. (“There’s a large number of people who don’t want to pay 15 dollars a month”, as he puts it.) Guild Wars was designed from the ground up to capture that niche, with community and help tools that minimized the need for frequent customer service– a key money sink for MMOs.
By Garriott’s estimate, Guild Wars incurs 80% less support costs than NCsoft’s more traditional MMOs, like their Lineage series. There are no Game Masters in Guild Wars, wandering around the world settling disputes and helping players—and charging NCsoft by the hour.
You know why subscription fees are tacked on to MMOs nowadays? It makes developers not worry about the release date their publishers give them. Most MMOs are given a set schedule no matter what's done or what's not. The subscription fee is insurance that they make a profit. However, it doesn't give them motivation to actually create something worthwhile playing. It's greed, plain and simple. That's what a sub is. People can stay delusional all they want about subscription fees but it's nevertheless the truth.
Tag.
That is such an incredibly unique view of things that i want to mark this post for future reference. Nice work!
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Box costs on all but the most niche titles would cover customer support. Single player games do customer support without subscriptions (Darkspore is a great example), and Valve provides customer support without charging a subscription as well. The profits from other sources, such as game sales, provide enough revenue to pay for bandwidth costs, customer services, and then provide a profit on top of that.
Even straight from the horse's mouth, ppl will not believe it and will challenge anything it seems. Its quite funny to see ppl here defending their guesses and just ignoring info when it comes from an actual developer/publisher etc...
I'd much, much rather pay a monthly fee and get regular game updates that I don't have to pay for instead of having to buy every single expansion (GW) or deal with a cash shop that withholds things from the game that I'll have to pay momey for (GW2.)
Anyone who thinks GW2 will be superior because of no monthly subscription is just deluding themselves. You'll have to buy the game and then on top of that you'll have a cash shop to sink even more money into.
Just charge me $14.99/month and give me everything for free.
I'd much, much rather pay a monthly fee and get regular game updates that I don't have to pay for instead of having to buy every single expansion (GW) or deal with a cash shop that withholds things from the game that I'll have to pay momey for (GW2.)
Anyone who thinks GW2 will be superior because of no monthly subscription is just deluding themselves. You'll have to buy the game and then on top of that you'll have a cash shop to sink even more money into.
Just charge me $14.99/month and give me everything for free.
I lol'd. You aren't getting anything for free if you're paying $15 a month, especially if you're forced to pay if you want anything at all.
When NCSoft acquired Arena Net, Guild Wars’ developer, Garriott and his team discerned an audience not being served by the traditional subscription-based MMO. (“There’s a large number of people who don’t want to pay 15 dollars a month”, as he puts it.) Guild Wars was designed from the ground up to capture that niche, with community and help tools that minimized the need for frequent customer service– a key money sink for MMOs.
By Garriott’s estimate, Guild Wars incurs 80% less support costs than NCsoft’s more traditional MMOs, like their Lineage series. There are no Game Masters in Guild Wars, wandering around the world settling disputes and helping players—and charging NCsoft by the hour.
As a game master you're there as a crutch for bad code and to help idiots that were not paying attention to who they were giving loot to. There is no good reason for why I have to port people that have fallen through the world 80 times a day. Also when a company is making nearly 2 billion a year in sub fees alone not includeing box sales of expansions the GM/Account admin staff doesn't even put a dent in that....
Now if a company had a sub fee no cash shop and free expansions I would call that fair (as in you are getting what you pay for and not being taken for a sucker).
I'd much, much rather pay a monthly fee and get regular game updates that I don't have to pay for instead of having to buy every single expansion (GW) or deal with a cash shop that withholds things from the game that I'll have to pay momey for (GW2.)
Anyone who thinks GW2 will be superior because of no monthly subscription is just deluding themselves. You'll have to buy the game and then on top of that you'll have a cash shop to sink even more money into.
Just charge me $14.99/month and give me everything for free.
You realize in WoW you do pay for the updates in addition to paying subscription costs, right? When Cataclysm came out, you paid for the whole thing... or so you thought... but then you only got how far? Right to Deathwing, or did you have to wait, and pay per month while waiting, for the next set of raids you already paid for with the Cataclysm box, only to wait for the next set of paid for raids, while still paying the subscription, only to wait for what... isn't Deathwing finally due to make an appearance in a raid I heard? After how many months from the release of Cataclysm? These raids that come out every so often... they're part of what you paid for, Cataclysm. They're not free content, they're withheld content that you had to wait to play! And all the while, while you wait, you pay. You pay to wait for what you paid for.
Think about it. How many months did you pay $14.99/month before you got all the content you paid how much again for Cataclysm?
By the way... GW2 doesn't withhold any content for cash. You buy the box, you get it all. From day one. No waiting, no paying to wait.
When NCSoft acquired Arena Net, Guild Wars’ developer, Garriott and his team discerned an audience not being served by the traditional subscription-based MMO. (“There’s a large number of people who don’t want to pay 15 dollars a month”, as he puts it.) Guild Wars was designed from the ground up to capture that niche, with community and help tools that minimized the need for frequent customer service– a key money sink for MMOs.
By Garriott’s estimate, Guild Wars incurs 80% less support costs than NCsoft’s more traditional MMOs, like their Lineage series. There are no Game Masters in Guild Wars, wandering around the world settling disputes and helping players—and charging NCsoft by the hour.
I think you're misunderstanding what you read there.
They aren't saying that Guild Wars has no customer service. They said that they found ways to make customer service more efficient...by providing tools to the community and by improving their game design. I'm trying to figure out how that's a bad thing in your mind. ArenaNet was able to reduce support costs significantly and still successfully launch and maintain an incredibly popular game.
So you aren't paying a sub fee for customer service....you're paying a sub fee for inefficient, wasteful customer service. I'm not sure whether you really want to continue on that line of argument.
Personally, I've never talked to a GM in an MMORPG for anything other than two reasons -
1) A bug with the game
2) A dispute over content or because of bad game design (fighting over spawns, blocking, etc)
Both of the above could be handled by clever game design and polish (as an example, I'll never have to fight over spawns or nodes in GW2 because of the game design), and made to almost never be a problem at all. GM's wouldn't be all that necessary then, especially if the community has tools for dealing with disputes, and can escalate issues when necessary.
Garriott just talks about how GW1 is much cheaper to maintain due to no game masters
and how they patch the game differently (I didnt post that part but its in the link)
I'm guessing GW2 will have game masters but if it doesnt, its because its a cost saving measure
As long as the game is coded well it doesn't matter. The only thing you should need in-game support for is harassment which GW1 does have support for. Sooo it's not an issue.
GM's can and should be sourced out to the FREE employee strat that ArenaNet has allready employed.
Let the players police themselves. (within limited respect) In GW 1 there are reporting tools with several option in which to contact and inform ArenaNet of any exploits or gameplay concerns quick and easy. I'm sure they will continue to follow that same train of thought.
GW players are just as passionate about the game as the dev team, im sure, and they don't stand for much mischief.
The game itself forces the player to learn or leave, there is no faking it. If you suck, you suck, and it shows, don't matter how much SHINNY you is. So all those low quality players end up leaving and going back to those low quality hand held games that tell them how to have fun.
Arenanet doesn't tell you how to have fun, they just let you have fun.
p.s all the players that think the cash shop in GW is buy to win are seriously mistaken.
it's just items you want not items you need. (like make-up for the girls)
Keep in mind that a LOT of server bandwidth is SAVED by having instances outside of towns. I'm not saying this is an excuse but can you imagine the bandwidth of WoW where you can be randomly running from IF to Wetlands and meeting up with people randomly? Does NOT happen in GW.
I wonder why this statement is often presented as fact? Sorry but you are wrong! Accumulated bandwitdh usage for a wow-client is comparable (+/- 20%) to a gw-client over a 1-hour period. Please monitor your bandwidth usage running both games before presenting these kind of statements as fact.
Encounters (combat, looting etc.) in a GW instance is handled serverside, just as it is in WoW. One difference is of course the chance to meet other players in WoW's "persistant" world but the information exchange is basically just a small set of indices to database recordsets, since the visual components (armor etc.) is already stored locally on the client.
Now just to level the playingfield a bit: All game updates in GW are distributed directly from A-net servers to each individual client. The default for wow-clients (last time I played) is that updates are distributed as a combination of central distribution + clientbased p2p. (Basically: Clients leverage part of the bandwidth used to distribute updates).
Sure there are reasons to pay a sub. Main reason would be that the game you prefer requires a sub, but "server bandwidth" is NOT the reason.
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!! (repeat ad infinitum)
I don't mind paying more but like a lot of the posters in this thread I wonder if my monthly subs are ever really going towards additional content, server maintenence, etc.
I read 3 pages of this and noticed no one said they pay to play for the benefit of potentially playin with 100s of people at the same time in seamless areas of MMOS, which is generally a large areas and most areas; + playin with more then 16-24 players in instances.. How many people can u have in the instances of GW2? 16 or somthing like that? i havent been payin attention to details. I'm not defendin expensive subs, I think most games should charge 10 or less. that would be much more fair. We all know bandwidth is cheap these days and there is not a whole lot of justification for a15/mo fee unless the content additons/story additions are excellent, happen often, and mostly free. An occasional expansion is fine with me. Like some of those who posted with their understanding of economics said, it's all about what the market will bear in prices. If people are willing to pay 15 bucks a pop for DLC map packs and story add-ons that are sometimes shoddy as hell then by god someone will charge you for it, just as they will for a overpriced subscription fee. ALso just cuz someone doesn't want to pay 15 bucks a month for a game doesnt mean their poor. That's an ignorant statement to say the least (you now why many rich r rich? cuz they didnt squander money in the first place, every dollar is survival n family legacy to them). Lots of times I have many game interests at the same time and gettin to play 20/mo for two instead of 30/mo would be nice. Not to mention non-mmos I play.
I read 3 pages of this and noticed no one said they pay to play for the benefit of potentially playin with 100s of people at the same time in seamless areas of MMOS, which is generally a large areas and most areas; + playin with more then 16-24 players in instances.. How many people can u have in the instances of GW2? 16 or somthing like that? i havent been payin attention to details. I'm not defendin expensive subs, I think most games should charge 10 or less. that would be much more fair. We all know bandwidth is cheap these days and there is not a whole lot of justification for a15/mo fee unless the content additons/story additions are excellent, happen often, and mostly free. An occasional expansion is fine with me. Like some of those who posted with their understanding of economics said, it's all about what the market will bear in prices. If people are willing to pay 15 bucks a pop for DLC map packs and story add-ons that are sometimes shoddy as hell then by god someone will charge you for it, just as they will for a overpriced subscription fee. ALso just cuz someone doesn't want to pay 15 bucks a month for a game doesnt mean their poor. That's an ignorant statement to say the least (you now why many rich r rich? cuz they didnt squander money in the first place, every dollar is survival n family legacy to them). Lots of times I have many game interests at the same time and gettin to play 20/mo for two instead of 30/mo would be nice. Not to mention non-mmos I play.
Sorry if I missed this here but I struggled to piece together what you were trying to say.
First of all, GW2 is not instanced. You can complete the Dynamic Events with as few or as many people as you please, there is no cap. The W v W v W aspect of the game is also very open and not balanced using x number of people per side.
The Dungeons in the game (Instances with Dynamic Events) are built specifically for parties of 5 people and have two modes. The first mode is story mode and that is there to tell the story of the game and is fairly easy to complete. The second mode is exploration mode and that is the chance to go through the dungeon again but the difficulty is massively increased and there are multiple events that can change the course of the dungeon with some of the content also being completely random.
So GW2 does not lag behind any other MMO with respect to group content and in many ways it excels since you don't even need to be partied with people to take part in the Dynamic Events and help each other. With regards to PvP you have both persistent, open world, pvp and structure more e-sports/arena style pvp.
And for the people who think the GW2 cash shop is going to be a complete ripoff, I'll see you in game.
I read 3 pages of this and noticed no one said they pay to play for the benefit of potentially playin with 100s of people at the same time in seamless areas of MMOS, which is generally a large areas and most areas; + playin with more then 16-24 players in instances.. How many people can u have in the instances of GW2? 16 or somthing like that? i havent been payin attention to details. I'm not defendin expensive subs, I think most games should charge 10 or less. that would be much more fair. We all know bandwidth is cheap these days and there is not a whole lot of justification for a15/mo fee unless the content additons/story additions are excellent, happen often, and mostly free. An occasional expansion is fine with me. Like some of those who posted with their understanding of economics said, it's all about what the market will bear in prices. If people are willing to pay 15 bucks a pop for DLC map packs and story add-ons that are sometimes shoddy as hell then by god someone will charge you for it, just as they will for a overpriced subscription fee. ALso just cuz someone doesn't want to pay 15 bucks a month for a game doesnt mean their poor. That's an ignorant statement to say the least (you now why many rich r rich? cuz they didnt squander money in the first place, every dollar is survival n family legacy to them). Lots of times I have many game interests at the same time and gettin to play 20/mo for two instead of 30/mo would be nice. Not to mention non-mmos I play.
first off, the only instances in guild wars 2 that I am aware of are your home instance, structured pvp, dungeons and your personal storyline. And even those together are only a small portion of whats available in guild wars 2.
my point is, since guild wars 2 is an open world MMO with huge spaces in which hundreds of players can participate, and it remains a B2P model. Then the argument that your paying a sub for that in other MMOs is rediculous.
My argument against the "Subs are for better content" shpeal is this; If a game has a sub for the purpose of giving you new content, then why are you paying extra money for expansions? and why are "free" content updates a justification for subs if the amount of sub you pay before a free content update equals or is above the price of an expansion? Also why do they call it a FREE content update if they use it as a justification for why your PAYING A MONTHLY FEE?!
The cash shop in GW2 is only for bells and whistles. The cash shop in GW2 will not enhance your character in any way except for how beautiful your scarf will look. You cannot buy to win in Guild Wars 2.
GW2 will have expansions much like the original Guild Wars did. These expansions are like monthly fees since they will probably cost $30 and released quarterly or annualy.
........
WoW and other P2P scams charge you $15 a month plus the cost of expansions. The player base is mostly comprised of bots and blizzard does not care if you RMT. So theres more money out of your wallet.
Sure the fees pay for services. But how much of your buck is actually put into the service? I'd say about 10%. The rest is used being spent on other titles for activision/blizzard.
Say you go on vacation or business trip and cannot play for a month but you have already paid for it. You just wasted $15 and you can cry all you want.
If a game is pay to play it should be charged by the hour. say 10 cents/hour (you know? like a phone service?)
..........
Also GW2 will have the same feeling as GW1 and it will be very different from any other MMO to date. The world will be sort of instanced but also persistent just like AION.
This horse has been beaten to a purple piece of slurp. Your $15 a month is paying for diddly squat. Soon all P2P will end up being F2P. If you had a brain you could see that. First it was Warhammer......getting a buzz?
GW2 will be one of the most beautiful MMOs out there. Aion currently has my vote for most beautiful.
Keep in mind that a LOT of server bandwidth is SAVED by having instances outside of towns. I'm not saying this is an excuse but can you imagine the bandwidth of WoW where you can be randomly running from IF to Wetlands and meeting up with people randomly? Does NOT happen in GW.
I wonder why this statement is often presented as fact? Sorry but you are wrong! Accumulated bandwitdh usage for a wow-client is comparable (+/- 20%) to a gw-client over a 1-hour period. Please monitor your bandwidth usage running both games before presenting these kind of statements as fact.
for Guild Wars - there is some factual truth to that, but its probably not a big issue
again from Garriott about Guild Wars 1, about saving money with bandwidth
The other cost-saving feature comes from economy of bandwidth. MMO players know all about long download times, when a game has an update, with patches that often exceed 100 megabytes, and thousands of players simultaneously piling on, to get it. (“It can cost us a million dollars for an update patch,” Garriott says of other NCSoft MMOs. “You peak when you release a giant download.”)
By contrast, Guild Wars streams its updates in small chunks, depending on what part of the world you’re in. “Instead of having peaks of bandwidth usage… [the update] streams it evenly over time, so the costs don’t peak.”
Numerous areas and quests in the world are “instantiated”, meaning specially created only for a small group of players, and that also minimizes bandwidth, since it means tracking less player data across the wider world.
to be clear, I'm not in favor of sub fees at all
but Garriott gives clear explanations how GW1 avoided costs by not having to pay GameMasters and tracking less player data in instancing
this thread is getting long and distorted. All it comes down to is this:
MMO Game Developers have costs - and there are many costs involved. They may have similar hard costs like t he bandwith and stuff, but we lay people just don't know what other costs are involved in creating a AAA MMO.
To call these gaming companies thieves is not fair in my view. They don't invest time, manpower, advertising / marketing, hardware, software out of the goodness of their hearts. Profit is what makes the MMO genre better for everyone.
Like many have said in these threads - yes Anet uses a P2P non subscription model. Other games are free to play with no subscription model. Does that make Anet a bunch of crooks? Um no. Just like Blizzard has P2P + subscription model are not crooks either. We can whine all day long on the forums about it, but the bottom line is : we are clueless what is involved with these companies and it is frankly none of our beeswax. The only thing that matters is whether you VALUE the game for the money you pay. Whether it is Runescape/ Wizard 101, or GW2, or Wow/ SW:TOR. If it is worth playing to me I will fund the company. Because I receive a pleasurable gaming experience for my money. My money will drive the business to make more content, expansions and continue to provide the fun I want. If I don't like it, my money goes elsewhere. Maybe the game goes free to play or maybe the company goes under (or gets bought by SOE).
I think you pay for the privillege of playing the game. If two games are exactly the same then you can go for the cheaper option. They are however never the same and each game is unique so you pay the asking price because you want to play that game not another game but that game.
They may have more people to pay a salary to or have more to spend on advertising or using it to create content it is of no real consequence because you pay what they ask as you have no choice if you want to play that game. Does not matter what the operation cost is because they are offering you the chance to play thier game at that price. You take it or leave it . If enough people end up leaving it , then it may become f2p like other games until then what are you getting for what you pay is irrelevant. Just like the branded items you pay for ,why pay extra ? Lot of times you pay just to be seen in that named brand .
Page 5. Looking at them it shows product sales alone are more than enough to cover their total costs. But if they can make more profit with subs, why not?
An individual who pays for WoW is not just paying towards WoW but really the money is used to fund everything including all other game development. Just like how NcSoft is funding the development of GW2 from their other sources of income. We might not be interested in these other games, but it's up to the company to decide what they want to do with their money.
All that though does not really matter much to the gamer. I'm just echoing what's already been said and that's if the game is worth the sub fee to the gamer, they'll pay for it. That's all. The sub fee is not needed to keep it running.
Comments
sub fees are overrated but they do pay for some things -- like Customer Service
here's Robert Garriott, CEO and President of NCsoft of North America
explaining difference between GW1 and Lineage server costs
http://gigaom.com/2006/10/26/guild-wars/
Guild Wars from the Server Side
When NCSoft acquired Arena Net, Guild Wars’ developer, Garriott and his team discerned an audience not being served by the traditional subscription-based MMO. (“There’s a large number of people who don’t want to pay 15 dollars a month”, as he puts it.) Guild Wars was designed from the ground up to capture that niche, with community and help tools that minimized the need for frequent customer service– a key money sink for MMOs.
By Garriott’s estimate, Guild Wars incurs 80% less support costs than NCsoft’s more traditional MMOs, like their Lineage series. There are no Game Masters in Guild Wars, wandering around the world settling disputes and helping players—and charging NCsoft by the hour.
EQ2 fan sites
Tag.
That is such an incredibly unique view of things that i want to mark this post for future reference. Nice work!
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
@Nadia
^^^ My post above. ^^^
Box costs on all but the most niche titles would cover customer support. Single player games do customer support without subscriptions (Darkspore is a great example), and Valve provides customer support without charging a subscription as well. The profits from other sources, such as game sales, provide enough revenue to pay for bandwidth costs, customer services, and then provide a profit on top of that.
@Loktofeit
That is an interesting perspective. Thanks for quoting that. And thanks to Konyak for sharing.
Even straight from the horse's mouth, ppl will not believe it and will challenge anything it seems. Its quite funny to see ppl here defending their guesses and just ignoring info when it comes from an actual developer/publisher etc...
Won't GW2 have a cash shop?
I'd much, much rather pay a monthly fee and get regular game updates that I don't have to pay for instead of having to buy every single expansion (GW) or deal with a cash shop that withholds things from the game that I'll have to pay momey for (GW2.)
Anyone who thinks GW2 will be superior because of no monthly subscription is just deluding themselves. You'll have to buy the game and then on top of that you'll have a cash shop to sink even more money into.
Just charge me $14.99/month and give me everything for free.
I lol'd. You aren't getting anything for free if you're paying $15 a month, especially if you're forced to pay if you want anything at all.
As a game master you're there as a crutch for bad code and to help idiots that were not paying attention to who they were giving loot to. There is no good reason for why I have to port people that have fallen through the world 80 times a day. Also when a company is making nearly 2 billion a year in sub fees alone not includeing box sales of expansions the GM/Account admin staff doesn't even put a dent in that....
Now if a company had a sub fee no cash shop and free expansions I would call that fair (as in you are getting what you pay for and not being taken for a sucker).
My theme song.
@Dreamchaser
sorry but I'll take Garriotts words over your explanation that box sales cover paying for Game Masters and such
ever wondered why Guild Wars never had GMs? its all about cost
EQ2 fan sites
You realize in WoW you do pay for the updates in addition to paying subscription costs, right? When Cataclysm came out, you paid for the whole thing... or so you thought... but then you only got how far? Right to Deathwing, or did you have to wait, and pay per month while waiting, for the next set of raids you already paid for with the Cataclysm box, only to wait for the next set of paid for raids, while still paying the subscription, only to wait for what... isn't Deathwing finally due to make an appearance in a raid I heard? After how many months from the release of Cataclysm? These raids that come out every so often... they're part of what you paid for, Cataclysm. They're not free content, they're withheld content that you had to wait to play! And all the while, while you wait, you pay. You pay to wait for what you paid for.
Think about it. How many months did you pay $14.99/month before you got all the content you paid how much again for Cataclysm?
By the way... GW2 doesn't withhold any content for cash. You buy the box, you get it all. From day one. No waiting, no paying to wait.
Oderint, dum metuant.
I think you're misunderstanding what you read there.
They aren't saying that Guild Wars has no customer service. They said that they found ways to make customer service more efficient...by providing tools to the community and by improving their game design. I'm trying to figure out how that's a bad thing in your mind. ArenaNet was able to reduce support costs significantly and still successfully launch and maintain an incredibly popular game.
So you aren't paying a sub fee for customer service....you're paying a sub fee for inefficient, wasteful customer service. I'm not sure whether you really want to continue on that line of argument.
Personally, I've never talked to a GM in an MMORPG for anything other than two reasons -
1) A bug with the game
2) A dispute over content or because of bad game design (fighting over spawns, blocking, etc)
Both of the above could be handled by clever game design and polish (as an example, I'll never have to fight over spawns or nodes in GW2 because of the game design), and made to almost never be a problem at all. GM's wouldn't be all that necessary then, especially if the community has tools for dealing with disputes, and can escalate issues when necessary.
Garriott talks about how GW1 is much cheaper to maintain due to no game masters
and how they avoid large bandwidth charges because they patch the game differently (I didnt post that part but its in the link)
I'm guessing GW2 will have game masters but if it doesnt, its because its a cost saving measure
EQ2 fan sites
As long as the game is coded well it doesn't matter. The only thing you should need in-game support for is harassment which GW1 does have support for. Sooo it's not an issue.
My theme song.
GM's can and should be sourced out to the FREE employee strat that ArenaNet has allready employed.
Let the players police themselves. (within limited respect) In GW 1 there are reporting tools with several option in which to contact and inform ArenaNet of any exploits or gameplay concerns quick and easy. I'm sure they will continue to follow that same train of thought.
GW players are just as passionate about the game as the dev team, im sure, and they don't stand for much mischief.
The game itself forces the player to learn or leave, there is no faking it. If you suck, you suck, and it shows, don't matter how much SHINNY you is. So all those low quality players end up leaving and going back to those low quality hand held games that tell them how to have fun.
Arenanet doesn't tell you how to have fun, they just let you have fun.
p.s all the players that think the cash shop in GW is buy to win are seriously mistaken.
it's just items you want not items you need. (like make-up for the girls)
I wonder why this statement is often presented as fact? Sorry but you are wrong! Accumulated bandwitdh usage for a wow-client is comparable (+/- 20%) to a gw-client over a 1-hour period. Please monitor your bandwidth usage running both games before presenting these kind of statements as fact.
Encounters (combat, looting etc.) in a GW instance is handled serverside, just as it is in WoW. One difference is of course the chance to meet other players in WoW's "persistant" world but the information exchange is basically just a small set of indices to database recordsets, since the visual components (armor etc.) is already stored locally on the client.
Now just to level the playingfield a bit: All game updates in GW are distributed directly from A-net servers to each individual client. The default for wow-clients (last time I played) is that updates are distributed as a combination of central distribution + clientbased p2p. (Basically: Clients leverage part of the bandwidth used to distribute updates).
Sure there are reasons to pay a sub. Main reason would be that the game you prefer requires a sub, but "server bandwidth" is NOT the reason.
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!!
(repeat ad infinitum)
I don't mind paying more but like a lot of the posters in this thread I wonder if my monthly subs are ever really going towards additional content, server maintenence, etc.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
I read 3 pages of this and noticed no one said they pay to play for the benefit of potentially playin with 100s of people at the same time in seamless areas of MMOS, which is generally a large areas and most areas; + playin with more then 16-24 players in instances.. How many people can u have in the instances of GW2? 16 or somthing like that? i havent been payin attention to details. I'm not defendin expensive subs, I think most games should charge 10 or less. that would be much more fair. We all know bandwidth is cheap these days and there is not a whole lot of justification for a15/mo fee unless the content additons/story additions are excellent, happen often, and mostly free. An occasional expansion is fine with me. Like some of those who posted with their understanding of economics said, it's all about what the market will bear in prices. If people are willing to pay 15 bucks a pop for DLC map packs and story add-ons that are sometimes shoddy as hell then by god someone will charge you for it, just as they will for a overpriced subscription fee. ALso just cuz someone doesn't want to pay 15 bucks a month for a game doesnt mean their poor. That's an ignorant statement to say the least (you now why many rich r rich? cuz they didnt squander money in the first place, every dollar is survival n family legacy to them). Lots of times I have many game interests at the same time and gettin to play 20/mo for two instead of 30/mo would be nice. Not to mention non-mmos I play.
Sorry if I missed this here but I struggled to piece together what you were trying to say.
First of all, GW2 is not instanced. You can complete the Dynamic Events with as few or as many people as you please, there is no cap. The W v W v W aspect of the game is also very open and not balanced using x number of people per side.
The Dungeons in the game (Instances with Dynamic Events) are built specifically for parties of 5 people and have two modes. The first mode is story mode and that is there to tell the story of the game and is fairly easy to complete. The second mode is exploration mode and that is the chance to go through the dungeon again but the difficulty is massively increased and there are multiple events that can change the course of the dungeon with some of the content also being completely random.
So GW2 does not lag behind any other MMO with respect to group content and in many ways it excels since you don't even need to be partied with people to take part in the Dynamic Events and help each other. With regards to PvP you have both persistent, open world, pvp and structure more e-sports/arena style pvp.
And for the people who think the GW2 cash shop is going to be a complete ripoff, I'll see you in game.
first off, the only instances in guild wars 2 that I am aware of are your home instance, structured pvp, dungeons and your personal storyline. And even those together are only a small portion of whats available in guild wars 2.
my point is, since guild wars 2 is an open world MMO with huge spaces in which hundreds of players can participate, and it remains a B2P model. Then the argument that your paying a sub for that in other MMOs is rediculous.
My argument against the "Subs are for better content" shpeal is this; If a game has a sub for the purpose of giving you new content, then why are you paying extra money for expansions? and why are "free" content updates a justification for subs if the amount of sub you pay before a free content update equals or is above the price of an expansion? Also why do they call it a FREE content update if they use it as a justification for why your PAYING A MONTHLY FEE?!
Lets base this argument on facts.
GW2 will be B2P , no monthly fees.
The cash shop in GW2 is only for bells and whistles. The cash shop in GW2 will not enhance your character in any way except for how beautiful your scarf will look. You cannot buy to win in Guild Wars 2.
GW2 will have expansions much like the original Guild Wars did. These expansions are like monthly fees since they will probably cost $30 and released quarterly or annualy.
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WoW and other P2P scams charge you $15 a month plus the cost of expansions. The player base is mostly comprised of bots and blizzard does not care if you RMT. So theres more money out of your wallet.
Sure the fees pay for services. But how much of your buck is actually put into the service? I'd say about 10%. The rest is used being spent on other titles for activision/blizzard.
Say you go on vacation or business trip and cannot play for a month but you have already paid for it. You just wasted $15 and you can cry all you want.
If a game is pay to play it should be charged by the hour. say 10 cents/hour (you know? like a phone service?)
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Also GW2 will have the same feeling as GW1 and it will be very different from any other MMO to date. The world will be sort of instanced but also persistent just like AION.
This horse has been beaten to a purple piece of slurp. Your $15 a month is paying for diddly squat. Soon all P2P will end up being F2P. If you had a brain you could see that. First it was Warhammer......getting a buzz?
GW2 will be one of the most beautiful MMOs out there. Aion currently has my vote for most beautiful.
-I am here to perform logic
Neverwinter Nights you bought playtime, it was very expensive! I'd rather have a monthly subscription than buying playtime...
for Guild Wars - there is some factual truth to that, but its probably not a big issue
again from Garriott about Guild Wars 1, about saving money with bandwidth
http://gigaom.com/2006/10/26/guild-wars/
The other cost-saving feature comes from economy of bandwidth. MMO players know all about long download times, when a game has an update, with patches that often exceed 100 megabytes, and thousands of players simultaneously piling on, to get it. (“It can cost us a million dollars for an update patch,” Garriott says of other NCSoft MMOs. “You peak when you release a giant download.”)
By contrast, Guild Wars streams its updates in small chunks, depending on what part of the world you’re in. “Instead of having peaks of bandwidth usage… [the update] streams it evenly over time, so the costs don’t peak.”
Numerous areas and quests in the world are “instantiated”, meaning specially created only for a small group of players, and that also minimizes bandwidth, since it means tracking less player data across the wider world.
to be clear, I'm not in favor of sub fees at all
but Garriott gives clear explanations how GW1 avoided costs by not having to pay GameMasters and tracking less player data in instancing
I cant wait for GW2 like everyone else
EQ2 fan sites
this thread is getting long and distorted. All it comes down to is this:
MMO Game Developers have costs - and there are many costs involved. They may have similar hard costs like t he bandwith and stuff, but we lay people just don't know what other costs are involved in creating a AAA MMO.
To call these gaming companies thieves is not fair in my view. They don't invest time, manpower, advertising / marketing, hardware, software out of the goodness of their hearts. Profit is what makes the MMO genre better for everyone.
Like many have said in these threads - yes Anet uses a P2P non subscription model. Other games are free to play with no subscription model. Does that make Anet a bunch of crooks? Um no. Just like Blizzard has P2P + subscription model are not crooks either. We can whine all day long on the forums about it, but the bottom line is : we are clueless what is involved with these companies and it is frankly none of our beeswax. The only thing that matters is whether you VALUE the game for the money you pay. Whether it is Runescape/ Wizard 101, or GW2, or Wow/ SW:TOR. If it is worth playing to me I will fund the company. Because I receive a pleasurable gaming experience for my money. My money will drive the business to make more content, expansions and continue to provide the fun I want. If I don't like it, my money goes elsewhere. Maybe the game goes free to play or maybe the company goes under (or gets bought by SOE).
Capitalism
GW2 was designed from Kaisen workshop.
I think you pay for the privillege of playing the game. If two games are exactly the same then you can go for the cheaper option. They are however never the same and each game is unique so you pay the asking price because you want to play that game not another game but that game.
They may have more people to pay a salary to or have more to spend on advertising or using it to create content it is of no real consequence because you pay what they ask as you have no choice if you want to play that game. Does not matter what the operation cost is because they are offering you the chance to play thier game at that price. You take it or leave it . If enough people end up leaving it , then it may become f2p like other games until then what are you getting for what you pay is irrelevant. Just like the branded items you pay for ,why pay extra ? Lot of times you pay just to be seen in that named brand .
Well Activision Blizzard do release their financial reports so we do know their total costs.
http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1104659-11-44296&CIK=718877
Page 5. Looking at them it shows product sales alone are more than enough to cover their total costs. But if they can make more profit with subs, why not?
An individual who pays for WoW is not just paying towards WoW but really the money is used to fund everything including all other game development. Just like how NcSoft is funding the development of GW2 from their other sources of income. We might not be interested in these other games, but it's up to the company to decide what they want to do with their money.
All that though does not really matter much to the gamer. I'm just echoing what's already been said and that's if the game is worth the sub fee to the gamer, they'll pay for it. That's all. The sub fee is not needed to keep it running.