IMHO, the payment model for MMOs is becoming a big factor in holding back these games.
I don't believe that any of the models works well. Because of the aversion to anything that reeks of Pay2Win, F2P generally deals in cosmetic/low-bonus perks that are real easy to avoid. I know I wouldn't pay money to get a fancy looking house/mount/clothes. This drives the percentage of those who pay down, and I think really skews the demographics.
Also, most of the AAA F2P games out there were not designed that way. If they were, they most certainly would not be the games they were initially. You just can't afford the budget without the box sale to help amortize a large development cost.
B2P is at least straightforward, but I question its long-term sustainability. The most famous of these, GW1, from my understanding was able to do this because the content was largely instanced, and run Peer2Peer between those in the instance. This kept their infrastructure costs down. GW2 seems less instanced from what I've read, so I'm not sure how they expect to expense the server costs as game sales go down, unless they go to a much rapid expansion cycle, which ends up almost being a sub.
But neither do subs work, except for one company out there. The problem isn't evident to those of you who spend every day in the game. But I don't have that MMO fever any more, and neither do a lot of non-MMO players out there. Would $15/month be worth it if you only played 5 hours?
WoW, in my opinion, managed to cross the line into the "Facebook" effect (or was it the other way around?...) In any case, WoW is a good enough game that one plays with ones friends, and if they all happen to be there, makes it hard to switch unless you pay for two subs or decide to leave old friends behind. So while people might experiment with another game, odds are they go back.
I'm beginning to think that MMOs should develop a new model, maybe calling it a "micro-sub" where you buy access in small, non-time based increments. For example, you buy the box, and that gives you an N-level/XP/AP/SP/CR/whatever cap. You can buy and increase, and it persists forever. So play as much as you want, or a little--your paid limits remain. If you reach your cap, fine. You can still login and chat with friends (it shouldn't kick you out, as that would decrease the likelihood that you'd pay for a bump up.)
I'm not sure if the above would work, but personally, it's a more straightforward and scalable (to the player) way to pay for access.
55.5% of that poll are people choosing a "No Sub" option of some form.
Guess we know the answer hm?
Yep, this site is full of freeloaders But that's not anything new. Pretty much every MMO that's come out in the past 5 years has had the "i would play it if it didn't have sub or was free" reaction.
I guess I just have a different mentality. I rarely like a game enough to want to play it but not enough to pay. I either like a game and am willing to pay for it or i don't like it and woulnd't play it regardless of cost. That's just me though.
I guess this makes everyone that plays any single player game a free loader too ? Given they only pay a the box price and no sub . Where is set in stone that an mmo should have a subscription fee ? Its not but your just to limited in your thinking and dogmatic in your attitude to see it . The markets changing and the developers need to evolve or die .
Releasing TSW as not only a subscription based game ( higher subs in the EU as well than any other mmo ) with a cash shop was an unbelievably effing stupid move . It was bound to fail big time and it did . Now had they had the sence to realise the game would have greater appeal as buy to play there would be huge numbers playing it now and we would all have been calling it a success .
I really hope you dont go into buisness for yourself you wont survive long before you go bankrupt . Maybe try and apply some common sence to your arguements in future before you call people freeloaders for liking a buy to play buisness model .
After all they will pay 50 dollars upfront for such games . They are not playing for nothing on a private/pirate server .
You would be right ..If it wasn't for the existence of piracy..
No...The new breed of gamers are FREELOADERS for sure..
Spoiled bratz that wants everything for free...
Free betas, most kids do all the betas, and if they can't play for free, they won't buy..Most wont buy because by the 2 weeks of open beta is over it's time for the next beta in some other game,
Free to play
and Torents and piracy.
If you think you are not going to pay more than 60 $ for GW2..Well think again..the average gamer will spend hundreds in the online store, and if not, then there will be some other player that spends "for you"..
Yeah... but the difference is I'm not being forced to pay for something I already paid for... and if I don't pay a sub, then the 50 or so bucks I spent on the game itself is wasted. It's a game I purchased that can't be used. That's why I don't like subscription games.
Call people freeloaders all you want, but the sad fact is that I might still pay a sub for a game I find fun and engaging or that has decent combat. TSW isn't that game.
Who is forcing you ?
You did get a "free month" didn't you ?
The 50 $ you spend on ANY game is "always" spent or wasted if you like the game or not..
Why is it a sad fact that you would pay for some other game you like?
This is how it should be under normal circumstances..If you like it pay , If you don't, well then don't !!
49.99 and NO sub. Hell, if the game is good i would pay even $80 for a digital deluxe edition (i did with Swtor) but remove the sub.
Years ago a subscription meant the mmo was good. Today, subscription means "we will make an incomplete AA mmo, call it AAA and charge a sub before it fails.... and dont forget to add a cash shop for extra moneys. When it fails then we make it hybrid and milk the free players"
GW2 is the best example that a high quality mmo dont need a sub / hybrid model anymore. The game just needs to be developed and published by the right people to succeed with no sub.
The problem is that the game isn't an mmo. It has 8 tiny, instanced, static worlds, with one lobby. The investigations are poorly done and a gimmick. Progression is insanely fast with over 70% of the wheel being worthless skills anyway. The writing is poor and the voice acting is cringeworthy... besides, imo, stories and voice are a waste of time in MMOs. Completely wasted resources from the devs.
The game is a single player with occasional coop, but with less content than most single player games. The game, especially the endgame, is a poorly done wow clone, with 1/10 the content, and disconnected instanced zones.
The problem is that the game isn't an mmo. It has 8 tiny, instanced, static worlds, with one lobby. The investigations are poorly done and a gimmick. Progression is insanely fast with over 70% of the wheel being worthless skills anyway. The writing is poor and the voice acting is cringeworthy... besides, imo, stories and voice are a waste of time in MMOs. Completely wasted resources from the devs.
The game is a single player with occasional coop, but with less content than most single player games. The game, especially the endgame, is a poorly done wow clone, with 1/10 the content, and disconnected instanced zones.
Haha..Good for you.. I do not believe one word you say..
But If it somehow was true regarding TSW, you are in a very very small minority that thinks this way ..:)
What's hurting it is the sub, especially in competition with GW2 right now. If they did a p2p + cs, I think there would be more players in a month or so after the GW2 hubub dies down a bit.
I bought a lifetime sub to TSW, which I don't regret, so I don't have any dogs in this fight. I'm just saying what I think. If they did a cash shop like GW2 with bag space, cosmetics, bank tabs, xp boosts, etc., I think that would work for the people who don't want to play the typical fantasy-type game.
From my own point of view, I don' t like gear grinds and endgame raiding either, because it breeds a kind of elitism. I think GW2 can avoid this with its current design. I hope so. But I see TSW heading down the endgame gear grind path, and I think the days for those kinds of games are over. Most people who want to do that are probably in WoW getting ready for MoP.
Funcom bottled it. Tsw was supposed to be about horizontal progression with no levels and I quote "a themepark where you can go on any ride you like". Then they changed tack and put in weapon skills a couple of months before release. They also changed tack and introduced these 10.1 ...10.4 gear levels. This to me was panic that the wow crowd wouldn't like the game without vertical progression.
It was never meant to have raids, now its getting them.
The entire of the inner earth (agatha) was supposed to be given over to 3 faction pvp and to fuel crafting / economy, again scaled that down to fusang, and introduced a stupid wow style wintergrasp like timer with the silly capture quests.
Basicly they were going to do a lot of the stuff gw2 does, then got scared off.
Originally posted by plutosams Although I purchased the life-time and am still very glad I did I was thinking about this earlier in the week. I think the best thing for them to do (in my opinion) is to lower the box price to say 19.99-29.99 and then lower the sub to 9.99 or possibly slightly lower. A lower sub will be more enticing. The updates they have produced and plan to produce justify a sub in my opinion, but I do feel 14.99 is a bit steep.
I personally wouldn't say I was very glad to have bought a lifetime sub, until it proved to be of some value to me. Call me crazy, but if I had bought a lifetime sub for TSW, I'd still be in the red. It would be months and months before I even broke even (assuming I continued to play each month). Right now, if I stopped playing or only logged in now and then it would have been a lot cheaper to have just paid a monthly sub.
All this talk of free to play is making me sick. I realy think that gamers should support the product that they are using. Gamers are a bunch of greedy bastards in my opinion. The amount of money you have to pay for a sub is so low, i realy dont understand what the fuzz is about. We who love games should support developers as much as we can, or else we might come to a point were no one is willing to make mmo anymore because to profit is too small and risk too high. I feel the same way about Diablo 3's online requirement. That is realy a good thing imo, because it makes piracy more difficult, and therefor the devs get more money to develop good games for us to enjoy. This mentality that all games should be cheap or free to play is going to destroy the industry some day, with most companys focusing on facebook games and browser games for kids.
Originally posted by Andistoteles All this talk of free to play is making me sick. I realy think that gamers should support the product that they are using. Gamers are a bunch of greedy bastards in my opinion. The amount of money you have to pay for a sub is so low, i realy dont understand what the fuzz is about. We who love games should support developers as much as we can, or else we might come to a point were no one is willing to make mmo anymore because to profit is too small and risk too high. I feel the same way about Diablo 3's online requirement. That is realy a good thing imo, because it makes piracy more difficult, and therefor the devs get more money to develop good games for us to enjoy. This mentality that all games should be cheap or free to play is going to destroy the industry some day, with most companys focusing on facebook games and browser games for kids.
If the industry isn't capable of making games that people are willing to pay subscriptions for, then it's the industry that has failed, not the payment model.
I'd have to do another poll to be really sure, but it seems like B2P would be the way to go for TSW, not some other form of F2P. Even there, they're not going to get many more people. If the percentages are correct (they're not, but let's pretend), Funcom could expect another 100,000 people or so to get on board if they dropped the subscription requirement.
No, I don't think TSW's hurdle is the cost of the game. It's reaching the people who want to play it. There's probably a bunch of them out there, and they don't even know they want to play this game.
** edit **
I need to clarify this. TSW should choose B2P over some sort of F2P, but the current box + subscription seems to be the most popular option for the game. They need to do something other than change their payment model.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
The problem is that the game isn't an mmo. It has 8 tiny, instanced, static worlds, with one lobby. The investigations are poorly done and a gimmick. Progression is insanely fast with over 70% of the wheel being worthless skills anyway. The writing is poor and the voice acting is cringeworthy... besides, imo, stories and voice are a waste of time in MMOs. Completely wasted resources from the devs.
The game is a single player with occasional coop, but with less content than most single player games. The game, especially the endgame, is a poorly done wow clone, with 1/10 the content, and disconnected instanced zones.
Haha..Good for you.. I do not believe one word you say..
But If it somehow was true regarding TSW, you are in a very very small minority that thinks this way ..:)
Huh? You don't "believe" what exactly? It only has 8 tiny instanced worlds with one lobby, which is used to spam for dungeons. This part is fact. I think that single player parts of "mmo" games are worthless, that is opinion. The game is SUPER fast to level, which is a fact. 70%+ of the skills are worthless... I think pretty much everyone agrees on that.
There is a reason the game sold poorly and will have an insane drop in subscribers after the first or second month... and you will find this drop to not be a "very, very small minority."
The reason I stopped playing, I enjoyed leveling immensely more than any other mmo. The game really does have excellent leveling pve. It's not so much the story element as although tsw does that better than any other mmo, its more the nature of the quests, the felt like mini adventures you could dip in and do one for half an hour, also it was fairly hard compared to modern mmos, also it was less linear than your wow clones and didn't hold your hand.
What ruined the game for me was gear driven endgame and typical wow style pvp, they could have got away with boring wow pvp a year ago but not vs gw2 & ps2.
Couldn't give a monkeys about a sub fee, I spend like 10 times that a month on going out.
The zones aren't tiny (bigger than swtor and gw2 zones for a start)
70% of the skills aren't useless, just about all of them have a role depending on what build you go for. You might for instance get 2 attacks one doing 10% more damage than the other, but the higher damage one is just a standard attack, where the lower one is a chain, which would do more damages in a build that's chain based with a bunch of chain passives.
As for the writing, lol, compared to what, the writing in tsw is excellent, ragnar tornquist is recognised as one of the best writers in the industry, look at the ratings / regard for tlj in adventure / rpg gamers circles.
Originally posted by ShakyMo Shadow, you are talking shite.
The zones aren't tiny (bigger than swtor and gw2 zones for a start)
70% of the skills aren't useless, just about all of them have a role depending on what build you go for. You might for instance get 2 attacks one doing 10% more damage than the other, but the higher damage one is just a standard attack, where the lower one is a chain, which would do more damages in a build that's chain based with a bunch of chain passives.
As for the writing, lol, compared to what, the writing in tsw is excellent, ragnar tornquist is recognised as one of the best writers in the industry, look at the ratings / regard for tlj in adventure / rpg gamers circles.
Yeah, agree.
Some people come out with some garbage, when they cearly haven't played and/or understand the game's mechanics.
The problem is that the game isn't an mmo. It has 8 tiny, instanced, static worlds, with one lobby. The investigations are poorly done and a gimmick. Progression is insanely fast with over 70% of the wheel being worthless skills anyway. The writing is poor and the voice acting is cringeworthy... besides, imo, stories and voice are a waste of time in MMOs. Completely wasted resources from the devs.
The game is a single player with occasional coop, but with less content than most single player games. The game, especially the endgame, is a poorly done wow clone, with 1/10 the content, and disconnected instanced zones.
Haha..Good for you.. I do not believe one word you say..
But If it somehow was true regarding TSW, you are in a very very small minority that thinks this way ..:)
Huh? You don't "believe" what exactly? It only has 8 tiny instanced worlds with one lobby, which is used to spam for dungeons. This part is fact. I think that single player parts of "mmo" games are worthless, that is opinion. The game is SUPER fast to level, which is a fact. 70%+ of the skills are worthless... I think pretty much everyone agrees on that.
There is a reason the game sold poorly and will have an insane drop in subscribers after the first or second month... and you will find this drop to not be a "very, very small minority."
I don't believe you are honest with your post,, "8 tiny instanced worlds" for example..TSW is not smaller or larger than any other MMO that just has been released since atleast 8 years back in time. Ohh I forgot to mention that Korean grinders is not included in this discussion, they may last longer but are mostly garbage..so..
Super fast to level , well...The average gamer should have no problems with content for 1-2 months, wich also is rather common for newly released MMO*s. If you played it faster , well good for you..:)
You even mention 1-2 months yourself, and there has not been a game released for atleast 8 years that has lasted longer than this after release,
So the last part I agree with ..There will be a huge drop in players after this, but that doesn't mean TSW is a bad game.
Originally posted by Crazylike The game is aweful and Funcom is going bankrupt, I wouldnt play this game if it was free.
This is the worst comment I've ever read on here.
Imo The Secret World is definitely in the top 3 for best MMO's available right now.
The only reason it's not doing well is because it's not the popular fantasy setting, and it has some innovative features, and most people like to stick to the tried and tested way of gaming. In other words, this game was only ever going to have a niche audience. That doesn't make it a bad game.
Im sorry, but maybe I should have stated that, that right there is my opinion. Obviously, I couldnt say that the game is bad for you, everyone has different taste and what not. I was simply answering the question asked.
Still, I seriously doubt if the game was F2P you wouldn't be playing. It's a great game imo, if the game was F2P it would be booming with very happy players.
Why would you doubt it? If for no other reason than there are only so many hours in the day/week/month. I know I can't play 3 or 4 mmos in a month. Well, I could, but I usually don't even play more than 1 at a time, and the only time I play a second is if the game is down for maintenance. So i wouldn't play the game if it was f2p simply because there are other games I enjoy more and don't have time for another.
Having bought it and played it, I can now say in hind sight that it's worth zip to me and I would never play at any price. Of course, since I did pay for it, I will never play and they get my 37 bucks
If the industry isn't capable of making games that people are willing to pay subscriptions for, then it's the industry that has failed, not the payment model.
I'm not sure about this particular aspect. The market has changed. Many of the games that we see these days blow away some of the games that we paid for in the past. The games have gotten better. The market has changed though, Hell, the economy's changed.
Look at how many folks are playing F2P or 99¢ apps on their iPhones or Android phones. Think about how much we used to pay back in the day for games for our handhelds. A lot of those games on Android or iOS are much better; but it doesn't matter - because the market has changed.
The market does not want to pay a sub. The market does not want to pay up front. TSW could have done awesome 3-4 years back.
Even with the numbers GW2's getting, it's still a small part of that overall market.
Personally, I'm kind of sad about where the market has gone - because it's forcing me to change the way I game.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
The problem is that the game isn't an mmo. It has 8 tiny, instanced, static worlds, with one lobby. The investigations are poorly done and a gimmick. Progression is insanely fast with over 70% of the wheel being worthless skills anyway. The writing is poor and the voice acting is cringeworthy... besides, imo, stories and voice are a waste of time in MMOs. Completely wasted resources from the devs.
The game is a single player with occasional coop, but with less content than most single player games. The game, especially the endgame, is a poorly done wow clone, with 1/10 the content, and disconnected instanced zones.
Haha..Good for you.. I do not believe one word you say..
But If it somehow was true regarding TSW, you are in a very very small minority that thinks this way ..:)
Huh? You don't "believe" what exactly? It only has 8 tiny instanced worlds with one lobby, which is used to spam for dungeons. This part is fact. I think that single player parts of "mmo" games are worthless, that is opinion. The game is SUPER fast to level, which is a fact. 70%+ of the skills are worthless... I think pretty much everyone agrees on that.
There is a reason the game sold poorly and will have an insane drop in subscribers after the first or second month... and you will find this drop to not be a "very, very small minority."
I don't believe you are honest with your post,, "8 tiny instanced worlds" for example..TSW is not smaller or larger than any other MMO that just has been released since atleast 8 years back in time. Ohh I forgot to mention that Korean grinders is not included in this discussion, they may last longer but are mostly garbage..so..
Super fast to level , well...The average gamer should have no problems with content for 1-2 months, wich also is rather common for newly released MMO*s. If you played it faster , well good for you..:)
You even mention 1-2 months yourself, and there has not been a game released for atleast 8 years that has lasted longer than this after release,
So the last part I agree with ..There will be a huge drop in players after this, but that doesn't mean TSW is a bad game.
Is this a joke? You think that TSW is not smaller than any other game? It is smaller than GW2, SWTOR, Tera, etc etc etc. It is a fraction of the size of all of them.
As far as levels, I had my entire first build by the third zone.
Originally posted by ShakyMo Shadow, you are talking shite.
The zones aren't tiny (bigger than swtor and gw2 zones for a start)
70% of the skills aren't useless, just about all of them have a role depending on what build you go for. You might for instance get 2 attacks one doing 10% more damage than the other, but the higher damage one is just a standard attack, where the lower one is a chain, which would do more damages in a build that's chain based with a bunch of chain passives.
As for the writing, lol, compared to what, the writing in tsw is excellent, ragnar tornquist is recognised as one of the best writers in the industry, look at the ratings / regard for tlj in adventure / rpg gamers circles.
Yes, the zones are about the size of the ones in GW2, except there are only 8 total, and they have very little content in them.
Nope, 70% of the skills are worthless.
As for the writing, I played TLJ, which was a great game... except the writing was long winded(known and pointed out everywhere), cliched, and completely overdone... which are the exact same problems with this game. I compare the writing to good books or shows, which puts TSW at the bottom of the barrel, along with a majority of games.
I've never found a F2P game that I've liked, so TSW's subscription is fine for me. I wish it were free to download the game client, like EVE Online is, but the extra cost is not that big of a deal. When you look at the cost per hour of an MMO that you enjoy, it's universally a bargain compared to most other forms of entertainment.
The subscription doesn't bother me (I currently subscribe to both World of Warcraft and DC Universe Online for two accounts to each game-- one for me, one for the wife), which might seem odd considering I am about to say, as I voted, that I don't feel the game is worth $49.99 for the buy-in. About $29.99 is the maximum I would pay for it. That was something I was just telling the wife today, as she was considering the 3-day trial. I told her that until the game is on sale for around $30, I wouldn't bother-- as there is no way I can feel good about paying $50 for it.
I tend to ignore subscription costs, as they don't bother us or ding our budget. But I just can't feel that The Secret World is worth more than a $30 buy-in cost.
Comments
IMHO, the payment model for MMOs is becoming a big factor in holding back these games.
I don't believe that any of the models works well. Because of the aversion to anything that reeks of Pay2Win, F2P generally deals in cosmetic/low-bonus perks that are real easy to avoid. I know I wouldn't pay money to get a fancy looking house/mount/clothes. This drives the percentage of those who pay down, and I think really skews the demographics.
Also, most of the AAA F2P games out there were not designed that way. If they were, they most certainly would not be the games they were initially. You just can't afford the budget without the box sale to help amortize a large development cost.
B2P is at least straightforward, but I question its long-term sustainability. The most famous of these, GW1, from my understanding was able to do this because the content was largely instanced, and run Peer2Peer between those in the instance. This kept their infrastructure costs down. GW2 seems less instanced from what I've read, so I'm not sure how they expect to expense the server costs as game sales go down, unless they go to a much rapid expansion cycle, which ends up almost being a sub.
But neither do subs work, except for one company out there. The problem isn't evident to those of you who spend every day in the game. But I don't have that MMO fever any more, and neither do a lot of non-MMO players out there. Would $15/month be worth it if you only played 5 hours?
WoW, in my opinion, managed to cross the line into the "Facebook" effect (or was it the other way around?...) In any case, WoW is a good enough game that one plays with ones friends, and if they all happen to be there, makes it hard to switch unless you pay for two subs or decide to leave old friends behind. So while people might experiment with another game, odds are they go back.
I'm beginning to think that MMOs should develop a new model, maybe calling it a "micro-sub" where you buy access in small, non-time based increments. For example, you buy the box, and that gives you an N-level/XP/AP/SP/CR/whatever cap. You can buy and increase, and it persists forever. So play as much as you want, or a little--your paid limits remain. If you reach your cap, fine. You can still login and chat with friends (it shouldn't kick you out, as that would decrease the likelihood that you'd pay for a bump up.)
I'm not sure if the above would work, but personally, it's a more straightforward and scalable (to the player) way to pay for access.
Who is forcing you ?
You did get a "free month" didn't you ?
The 50 $ you spend on ANY game is "always" spent or wasted if you like the game or not..
Why is it a sad fact that you would pay for some other game you like?
This is how it should be under normal circumstances..If you like it pay , If you don't, well then don't !!
49.99 and NO sub. Hell, if the game is good i would pay even $80 for a digital deluxe edition (i did with Swtor) but remove the sub.
Years ago a subscription meant the mmo was good. Today, subscription means "we will make an incomplete AA mmo, call it AAA and charge a sub before it fails.... and dont forget to add a cash shop for extra moneys. When it fails then we make it hybrid and milk the free players"
GW2 is the best example that a high quality mmo dont need a sub / hybrid model anymore. The game just needs to be developed and published by the right people to succeed with no sub.
Ave B2P!!!
The problem is that the game isn't an mmo. It has 8 tiny, instanced, static worlds, with one lobby. The investigations are poorly done and a gimmick. Progression is insanely fast with over 70% of the wheel being worthless skills anyway. The writing is poor and the voice acting is cringeworthy... besides, imo, stories and voice are a waste of time in MMOs. Completely wasted resources from the devs.
The game is a single player with occasional coop, but with less content than most single player games. The game, especially the endgame, is a poorly done wow clone, with 1/10 the content, and disconnected instanced zones.
Haha..Good for you.. I do not believe one word you say..
But If it somehow was true regarding TSW, you are in a very very small minority that thinks this way ..:)
I like TSW a lot.
What's hurting it is the sub, especially in competition with GW2 right now. If they did a p2p + cs, I think there would be more players in a month or so after the GW2 hubub dies down a bit.
I bought a lifetime sub to TSW, which I don't regret, so I don't have any dogs in this fight. I'm just saying what I think. If they did a cash shop like GW2 with bag space, cosmetics, bank tabs, xp boosts, etc., I think that would work for the people who don't want to play the typical fantasy-type game.
From my own point of view, I don' t like gear grinds and endgame raiding either, because it breeds a kind of elitism. I think GW2 can avoid this with its current design. I hope so. But I see TSW heading down the endgame gear grind path, and I think the days for those kinds of games are over. Most people who want to do that are probably in WoW getting ready for MoP.
Tsw was supposed to be about horizontal progression with no levels and I quote "a themepark where you can go on any ride you like". Then they changed tack and put in weapon skills a couple of months before release. They also changed tack and introduced these 10.1 ...10.4 gear levels. This to me was panic that the wow crowd wouldn't like the game without vertical progression.
It was never meant to have raids, now its getting them.
The entire of the inner earth (agatha) was supposed to be given over to 3 faction pvp and to fuel crafting / economy, again scaled that down to fusang, and introduced a stupid wow style wintergrasp like timer with the silly capture quests.
Basicly they were going to do a lot of the stuff gw2 does, then got scared off.
After seeing what GW2 is giving with no sub , just a box fee + shop , I find it ridiculous I even put in CC infor for TSW.
It was fun initially , but quickly became painfully evident not worth a sub fee.
I personally wouldn't say I was very glad to have bought a lifetime sub, until it proved to be of some value to me. Call me crazy, but if I had bought a lifetime sub for TSW, I'd still be in the red. It would be months and months before I even broke even (assuming I continued to play each month). Right now, if I stopped playing or only logged in now and then it would have been a lot cheaper to have just paid a monthly sub.
If the industry isn't capable of making games that people are willing to pay subscriptions for, then it's the industry that has failed, not the payment model.
I'd have to do another poll to be really sure, but it seems like B2P would be the way to go for TSW, not some other form of F2P. Even there, they're not going to get many more people. If the percentages are correct (they're not, but let's pretend), Funcom could expect another 100,000 people or so to get on board if they dropped the subscription requirement.
No, I don't think TSW's hurdle is the cost of the game. It's reaching the people who want to play it. There's probably a bunch of them out there, and they don't even know they want to play this game.
** edit **
I need to clarify this. TSW should choose B2P over some sort of F2P, but the current box + subscription seems to be the most popular option for the game. They need to do something other than change their payment model.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Huh? You don't "believe" what exactly? It only has 8 tiny instanced worlds with one lobby, which is used to spam for dungeons. This part is fact. I think that single player parts of "mmo" games are worthless, that is opinion. The game is SUPER fast to level, which is a fact. 70%+ of the skills are worthless... I think pretty much everyone agrees on that.
There is a reason the game sold poorly and will have an insane drop in subscribers after the first or second month... and you will find this drop to not be a "very, very small minority."
What ruined the game for me was gear driven endgame and typical wow style pvp, they could have got away with boring wow pvp a year ago but not vs gw2 & ps2.
Couldn't give a monkeys about a sub fee, I spend like 10 times that a month on going out.
The zones aren't tiny (bigger than swtor and gw2 zones for a start)
70% of the skills aren't useless, just about all of them have a role depending on what build you go for. You might for instance get 2 attacks one doing 10% more damage than the other, but the higher damage one is just a standard attack, where the lower one is a chain, which would do more damages in a build that's chain based with a bunch of chain passives.
As for the writing, lol, compared to what, the writing in tsw is excellent, ragnar tornquist is recognised as one of the best writers in the industry, look at the ratings / regard for tlj in adventure / rpg gamers circles.
Yeah, agree.
Some people come out with some garbage, when they cearly haven't played and/or understand the game's mechanics.
I don't believe you are honest with your post,, "8 tiny instanced worlds" for example..TSW is not smaller or larger than any other MMO that just has been released since atleast 8 years back in time. Ohh I forgot to mention that Korean grinders is not included in this discussion, they may last longer but are mostly garbage..so..
Super fast to level , well...The average gamer should have no problems with content for 1-2 months, wich also is rather common for newly released MMO*s. If you played it faster , well good for you..:)
You even mention 1-2 months yourself, and there has not been a game released for atleast 8 years that has lasted longer than this after release,
So the last part I agree with ..There will be a huge drop in players after this, but that doesn't mean TSW is a bad game.
Why would you doubt it? If for no other reason than there are only so many hours in the day/week/month. I know I can't play 3 or 4 mmos in a month. Well, I could, but I usually don't even play more than 1 at a time, and the only time I play a second is if the game is down for maintenance. So i wouldn't play the game if it was f2p simply because there are other games I enjoy more and don't have time for another.
Having bought it and played it, I can now say in hind sight that it's worth zip to me and I would never play at any price. Of course, since I did pay for it, I will never play and they get my 37 bucks
I'm not sure about this particular aspect. The market has changed. Many of the games that we see these days blow away some of the games that we paid for in the past. The games have gotten better. The market has changed though, Hell, the economy's changed.
Look at how many folks are playing F2P or 99¢ apps on their iPhones or Android phones. Think about how much we used to pay back in the day for games for our handhelds. A lot of those games on Android or iOS are much better; but it doesn't matter - because the market has changed.
The market does not want to pay a sub. The market does not want to pay up front. TSW could have done awesome 3-4 years back.
Even with the numbers GW2's getting, it's still a small part of that overall market.
Personally, I'm kind of sad about where the market has gone - because it's forcing me to change the way I game.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Is this a joke? You think that TSW is not smaller than any other game? It is smaller than GW2, SWTOR, Tera, etc etc etc. It is a fraction of the size of all of them.
As far as levels, I had my entire first build by the third zone.
Yes, the zones are about the size of the ones in GW2, except there are only 8 total, and they have very little content in them.
Nope, 70% of the skills are worthless.
As for the writing, I played TLJ, which was a great game... except the writing was long winded(known and pointed out everywhere), cliched, and completely overdone... which are the exact same problems with this game. I compare the writing to good books or shows, which puts TSW at the bottom of the barrel, along with a majority of games.
I've never found a F2P game that I've liked, so TSW's subscription is fine for me. I wish it were free to download the game client, like EVE Online is, but the extra cost is not that big of a deal. When you look at the cost per hour of an MMO that you enjoy, it's universally a bargain compared to most other forms of entertainment.
The subscription doesn't bother me (I currently subscribe to both World of Warcraft and DC Universe Online for two accounts to each game-- one for me, one for the wife), which might seem odd considering I am about to say, as I voted, that I don't feel the game is worth $49.99 for the buy-in. About $29.99 is the maximum I would pay for it. That was something I was just telling the wife today, as she was considering the 3-day trial. I told her that until the game is on sale for around $30, I wouldn't bother-- as there is no way I can feel good about paying $50 for it.
I tend to ignore subscription costs, as they don't bother us or ding our budget. But I just can't feel that The Secret World is worth more than a $30 buy-in cost.