There's nothing wrong with the Sub ("p2p") model itself. The problem in recent years, and the reason that only three Sub games are still kicking, is because developers have been short-sighted enough to release these games with little or no content, horrific bugs, and not enough focus on end-game development (for examples, just take a look at Aion, Tera, ToR, and Rift, among others). The reason WoW and Eve have lasted so long is because they have provided their players with enough content to justify them paying a monthly fee; the games mentioned above did not. It's not that the model is bad, and I would actually prefer to pay a sub fee because it means my fellow players have something invested in the game; it's that for some inexplicable reason some of these game companies seem to believe that you can launch a game and then tell you players to wait three to six months for the content to arrive. Sorry, but that won't work when you're charging a fee.
As you say a sub model in and of itself has its place. Many people pay subs for a wide range of products: National Geographic, golf memberships, Xbox Live - lots of things.
Once the monthly sub paid for very expensive networks. Today that is no longer the case. Guild War's "play free forever" forever slogan says it all. The monthly sub pays for ..... all to often promises of what might be in 3 or 6 months.
The sub needs to be turned on its head and brought into the current world.
Old way: $180 per year for server access + free content. People sub until they get bored. People who sub every 12th month get a whole year of extra content free.
New way: $180 (say) for new content + free online play time. People stop buying new content when they get bored. No free loading subscribers.
So post launch people get an option to buy the Thieves Guild storyline; $15 with 30 days online play for free; Dark Brotherhood, $20 maybe with 40 days online play included for free. With additional time being available at a price that bears some resemblance to the costs involved: $10 for a year perhaps.
Matt Frior's "excuse" for wanting to go down a subscription route is that Zenimax don't want players to come to a dungeon and then be faced with a pop-up saying go spend 50 credits. What sort of pop up are Zennimax planning when someone fires up the game without a sub: non-subscriber go spend $15.
Simple concept: pay for content, online access "free".
Not pay unrealistic sums that cannot be defended for online access; promise of future content "free".
Originally posted by cura There are too many F2P and B2P mmos to pay monthly for another medicore product.
the problem is just that there are too many F2P and B2P medicore or just plan bad MMO's. My time is worth too much to me to waste it on such, so I'd much rather have a decent/good MMO to play even if there is subscription Thus yes I would pay to play ESO.
The old adage that you get what you pay for is more true then most people think. Companies make their games F2P and B2P frequently because they know they just are worth a monthly subscription. They cn get away with poor ass grind expansions Like GW2 has done recently because they know players can't really complain as its free. Though in all reality nothing is ever really free. If you want to play reasonably you will be buying bags or whatever items they push you into needing from their cash shops. TSW maybe the only game yet that hasn't really gone that route as I don't really feel the cosmetic items are a must or make game play vastly improved.(unlike say the need for gear space and thus need to buy bags.)
Originally posted by Livnthedream Why all the shitty polls? There is simply not enough information yet to even come close to answering the question realistically.
and
Originally posted by cura There are too many F2P and B2P mmos to pay monthly for another medicore product.
There's nothing wrong with the Sub ("p2p") model itself. The problem in recent years, and the reason that only three Sub games are still kicking, is because developers have been short-sighted enough to release these games with little or no content, horrific bugs, and not enough focus on end-game development (for examples, just take a look at Aion, Tera, ToR, and Rift, among others). The reason WoW and Eve have lasted so long is because they have provided their players with enough content to justify them paying a monthly fee; the games mentioned above did not. It's not that the model is bad, and I would actually prefer to pay a sub fee because it means my fellow players have something invested in the game; it's that for some inexplicable reason some of these game companies seem to believe that you can launch a game and then tell you players to wait three to six months for the content to arrive. Sorry, but that won't work when you're charging a fee.
As you say a sub model in and of itself has its place. Many people pay subs for a wide range of products: National Geographic, golf memberships, Xbox Live - lots of things.
Once the monthly sub paid for very expensive networks. Today that is no longer the case. Guild War's "play free forever" forever slogan says it all. The monthly sub pays for ..... all to often promises of what might be in 3 or 6 months.
The sub needs to be turned on its head and brought into the current world.
Old way: $180 per year for server access + free content. People sub until they get bored. People who sub every 12th month get a whole year of extra content free.
New way: $180 (say) for new content + free online play time. People stop buying new content when they get bored. No free loading subscribers.
So post launch people get an option to buy the Thieves Guild storyline; $15 with 30 days online play for free; Dark Brotherhood, $20 maybe with 40 days online play included for free. With additional time being available at a price that bears some resemblance to the costs involved: $10 for a year perhaps.
Matt Frior's "excuse" for wanting to go down a subscription route is that Zenimax don't want players to come to a dungeon and then be faced with a pop-up saying go spend 50 credits. What sort of pop up are Zennimax planning when someone fires up the game without a sub: non-subscriber go spend $15.
Simple concept: pay for content, online access "free".
Not pay unrealistic sums that cannot be defended for online access; promise of future content "free".
Don't you ever get tired of being nickled and dimed at every corner, and in the end paying way more then a subscription for bits and pieces so you can cover both your playing and the free loading players that pay nothing? Really theres nothing Free in free 2 play unless you have nothing to do all day but play to make up the difference. SOE's f2p model has already been shown to be much more expensive then their standard subfor even less items.
People see F2P or B2P and think yeah I'm getting over, but once everything is adding in they more time then not are actually being taken to the bank with overall costs frequently hundreds of dollars more a year then if they simply payed a subscription
Originally posted by cura There are too many F2P and B2P mmos to pay monthly for another medicore product.
the problem is just that there are too many F2P and B2P medicore or just plan bad MMO's. My time is worth too much to me to waste it on such, so I'd much rather have a decent/good MMO to play even if there is subscription Thus yes I would pay to play ESO.
The old adage that you get what you pay for is more true then most people think. Companies make their games F2P and B2P frequently because they know they just are worth a monthly subscription. They cn get away with poor ass grind expansions Like GW2 has done recently because they know players can't really complain as its free. Though in all reality nothing is ever really free. If you want to play reasonably you will be buying bags or whatever items they push you into needing from their cash shops. TSW maybe the only game yet that hasn't really gone that route as I don't really feel the cosmetic items are a must or make game play vastly improved.(unlike say the need for gear space and thus need to buy bags.)
Stop right there! Stop spreading false rumors about something that you do not understand AT ALL. You know, when you get certain level of achievement points you get free gems by the hundreds. Also you can always at any given time exchange gold into gems virtually making ANYTHING in the cash shop available to you with ingame currency which btw is super easy to come by if you try.
But yeah easier to play smart on a forum than taking on the challenge
P.S: Even though i pay for goods in the cash shop (understand - skins, consumables etc), I've bought character slots bank space and bag space completely with gold on the headstart
And yeah I pay in Gw2 because I like the developer and that is how I show my support, NOT because I am forced to do so. There are those months that I do not pay for various reasons.
In 10 days they are adding 3 new fractal dungeons ... not 1, not 2, but 3 ! Revamping other systems alongside with it. All that for absolutely no cost at all. Now tell me how a P2P MMO is better than that. WoW charges you for your expansions
Not to mention that Gw2 has one of the deepest most intertwined lore out there
There's nothing wrong with the Sub ("p2p") model itself. The problem in recent years, and the reason that only three Sub games are still kicking, is because developers have been short-sighted enough to release these games with little or no content, horrific bugs, and not enough focus on end-game development (for examples, just take a look at Aion, Tera, ToR, and Rift, among others). The reason WoW and Eve have lasted so long is because they have provided their players with enough content to justify them paying a monthly fee; the games mentioned above did not. It's not that the model is bad, and I would actually prefer to pay a sub fee because it means my fellow players have something invested in the game; it's that for some inexplicable reason some of these game companies seem to believe that you can launch a game and then tell you players to wait three to six months for the content to arrive. Sorry, but that won't work when you're charging a fee.
As you say a sub model in and of itself has its place. Many people pay subs for a wide range of products: National Geographic, golf memberships, Xbox Live - lots of things.
Once the monthly sub paid for very expensive networks. Today that is no longer the case. Guild War's "play free forever" forever slogan says it all. The monthly sub pays for ..... all to often promises of what might be in 3 or 6 months.
The sub needs to be turned on its head and brought into the current world.
Old way: $180 per year for server access + free content. People sub until they get bored. People who sub every 12th month get a whole year of extra content free.
New way: $180 (say) for new content + free online play time. People stop buying new content when they get bored. No free loading subscribers.
So post launch people get an option to buy the Thieves Guild storyline; $15 with 30 days online play for free; Dark Brotherhood, $20 maybe with 40 days online play included for free. With additional time being available at a price that bears some resemblance to the costs involved: $10 for a year perhaps.
Matt Frior's "excuse" for wanting to go down a subscription route is that Zenimax don't want players to come to a dungeon and then be faced with a pop-up saying go spend 50 credits. What sort of pop up are Zennimax planning when someone fires up the game without a sub: non-subscriber go spend $15.
Simple concept: pay for content, online access "free".
Not pay unrealistic sums that cannot be defended for online access; promise of future content "free".
Don't you ever get tired of being nickled and dimed at every corner, and in the end paying way more then a subscription for bits and pieces so you can cover both your playing and the free loading players that pay nothing? Really theres nothing Free in free 2 play unless you have nothing to do all day but play to make up the difference. SOE's f2p model has already been shown to be much more expensive then their standard subfor even less items.
People see F2P or B2P and think yeah I'm getting over, but once everything is adding in they more time then not are actually being taken to the bank with overall costs frequently hundreds of dollars more a year then if they simply payed a subscription
This ^ is where I'm at with MMOs.
F2P is a nice model to test drive a game, though if I enjoy it, I prefer to subscribe anyway so as to save money over the next year. Having to pay for character slots, inventory slots, auction / trade slots, mail feature unlocks, level cap unlocks, gear unlocks, and even content unlocks really adds up to far more than a monthly fee.
That ESO is coming out of the gate with a subscription model is ok with me.
I actually *hope* it's got a monthly fee, and that it's worth that monthly fee.
F2P destroys games for me. They become flooded with morons and the whole thing starts to feel like a skeevy carnival, with little pieces of crap for sale every five paces.
There's nothing wrong with the Sub ("p2p") model itself. The problem in recent years, and the reason that only three Sub games are still kicking, is because developers have been short-sighted enough to release these games with little or no content, horrific bugs, and not enough focus on end-game development (for examples, just take a look at Aion, Tera, ToR, and Rift, among others). The reason WoW and Eve have lasted so long is because they have provided their players with enough content to justify them paying a monthly fee; the games mentioned above did not. It's not that the model is bad, and I would actually prefer to pay a sub fee because it means my fellow players have something invested in the game; it's that for some inexplicable reason some of these game companies seem to believe that you can launch a game and then tell you players to wait three to six months for the content to arrive. Sorry, but that won't work when you're charging a fee.
As you say a sub model in and of itself has its place. Many people pay subs for a wide range of products: National Geographic, golf memberships, Xbox Live - lots of things.
Once the monthly sub paid for very expensive networks. Today that is no longer the case. Guild War's "play free forever" forever slogan says it all. The monthly sub pays for ..... all to often promises of what might be in 3 or 6 months.
The sub needs to be turned on its head and brought into the current world.
Old way: $180 per year for server access + free content. People sub until they get bored. People who sub every 12th month get a whole year of extra content free.
New way: $180 (say) for new content + free online play time. People stop buying new content when they get bored. No free loading subscribers.
So post launch people get an option to buy the Thieves Guild storyline; $15 with 30 days online play for free; Dark Brotherhood, $20 maybe with 40 days online play included for free. With additional time being available at a price that bears some resemblance to the costs involved: $10 for a year perhaps.
Matt Frior's "excuse" for wanting to go down a subscription route is that Zenimax don't want players to come to a dungeon and then be faced with a pop-up saying go spend 50 credits. What sort of pop up are Zennimax planning when someone fires up the game without a sub: non-subscriber go spend $15.
Simple concept: pay for content, online access "free".
Not pay unrealistic sums that cannot be defended for online access; promise of future content "free".
Don't you ever get tired of being nickled and dimed at every corner, and in the end paying way more then a subscription for bits and pieces so you can cover both your playing and the free loading players that pay nothing? Really theres nothing Free in free 2 play unless you have nothing to do all day but play to make up the difference. SOE's f2p model has already been shown to be much more expensive then their standard subfor even less items.
People see F2P or B2P and think yeah I'm getting over, but once everything is adding in they more time then not are actually being taken to the bank with overall costs frequently hundreds of dollars more a year then if they simply payed a subscription
This ^ is where I'm at with MMOs.
F2P is a nice model to test drive a game, though if I enjoy it, I prefer to subscribe anyway so as to save money over the next year. Having to pay for character slots, inventory slots, auction / trade slots, mail feature unlocks, level cap unlocks, gear unlocks, and even content unlocks really adds up to far more than a monthly fee.
That ESO is coming out of the gate with a subscription model is ok with me.
Not sure how you got "free-to-play" from "paying for the new content" every 4-6 weeks. What I said was that the current sub model needs to be turned on its head.
F2P implies micro-transactions, nickel and diming as you say, paying for slots whatever ...
Paying for new content wouldn't be a micro-transaction. Say Zenimax release 2 content drops in 12 weeks and charge $22.50 for each then you would pay $45 in 3 months. You could even "subscribe" to "auto-purchase" all the new content (with suitable safeguards).
That's not a F2P type cash shop.
You could continue to play what you have bought for free (or for a small charge) even if you decide not to purchase any new content. Let me say that again. You could continue to play what you have already bought.
This idea that you pay $15 for the network costs and then expect to get the content for free is nonsense. Too many subscribers expect to get content for nothing. Too many smart subscribers pop in and out of games and get the new content for free.
Network costs are relatively inexpensive. Games like Guild War prove that. Content is what costs. Far to often a monthly sub these days results in nothing more than trivial content drops followed by paid for expansions. Its false. It leads to people complaining. And then they stop subscribing. Followed recently by games going F2P and lots of smoke and mirrors about how many accounts they have.
People shouldn't expect something for nothing but they can expect to pay for what they get and its reasonable that they can carry on playing what they have bought once they have bought it. Simple. Clean. The current sub model is nonsense.
Originally posted by Livnthedream Why all the shitty polls? There is simply not enough information yet to even come close to answering the question realistically.
thats the typical rate for any MMO thats worth anything. So yep....sure will as long as the game is good I have no issue with pitching in to help pay for its continued ongoing development and patches.
They are banking on the idea that people liked GW2 soo much that they would be willing to pay a monthly fee for a game just like it instead of just playing GW2 for free.
Its not a case of IF elder scrolls will have a subscription as the developers have said numerous times that the game will never be able to run on a free to play option.
Originally posted by Swids2010 Its not a case of IF elder scrolls will have a subscription as the developers have said numerous times that the game will never be able to run on a free to play option.
That is a blatant lie that one would expect from a major corporation. The dozens of F2P games (whether good or bad, doesnt matter) and B2P games just prove that.
It might be a bad example but also look at games like CoD or Battlefield 4, you buy them and you play the game, mostly ONLINE with no added fees. Most servers are not player hosted, so there are those server ran by the developers, which should cost shitton of money according to Zenimax right? Wrong!
P.S: Please do bookmark this statement for when the game goes F2P or B2P (like TSW did) so you can wave it at their faces when the time comes
Originally posted by Swids2010 Its not a case of IF elder scrolls will have a subscription as the developers have said numerous times that the game will never be able to run on a free to play option.
That is a blatant lie that one would expect from a major corporation. The dozens of F2P games (whether good or bad, doesnt matter) and B2P games just prove that.
It might be a bad example but also look at games like CoD or Battlefield 4, you buy them and you play the game, mostly ONLINE with no added fees. Most servers are not player hosted, so there are those server ran by the developers, which should cost shitton of money according to Zenimax right? Wrong!
P.S: Please do bookmark this statement for when the game goes F2P or B2P (like TSW did) so you can wave it at their faces when the time comes
Agree. Zenimax may have no desire to run the game without a sub but other games show that there are other, arguably smarter ways to generate money. And I am not talking about free-to-play.
Sk1ppeR mentioned Battlefield - one of several successful non-sub / non-F2P games.
You can play the game you buy without having to pay extra. It has no sub. .Didn't stop EA booking $121M in premium subscriptions however in fiscal 2013. That's over and above what it made from individual DLC purchases.
Most successful games of late have smart pricing. Paid for DLC; a premium sub option; an extra charge for co-op play - there are various combinations. They all allow you to play the core game - that you bought - at no extra charge. To play the game you bought. And they have a clear link between what you can pay extra and what you will get in return. In B3, for example, EA committed to providing 5 content drops. Surely Zenimax are as capable as EA!
If they stick with their current plan my fear is that TESO will be a niche game. Or worse.
Originally posted by Swids2010 Its not a case of IF elder scrolls will have a subscription as the developers have said numerous times that the game will never be able to run on a free to play option.
That is a blatant lie that one would expect from a major corporation. The dozens of F2P games (whether good or bad, doesnt matter) and B2P games just prove that.
It might be a bad example but also look at games like CoD or Battlefield 4, you buy them and you play the game, mostly ONLINE with no added fees. Most servers are not player hosted, so there are those server ran by the developers, which should cost shitton of money according to Zenimax right? Wrong!
P.S: Please do bookmark this statement for when the game goes F2P or B2P (like TSW did) so you can wave it at their faces when the time comes
I totally agree because when it does go F2P and its is when not if I cant wait to throw these daft comments the developers keep making about not being able to run the game as a F2P option.
I suggest that all the elitist know-it-alls who are pretending to be telepathic prophets of doom, decrying that ESO will be F2P in a year, to bookmark this thread.
Assuming I am correct that the game will still be P4P after 1 year, you'll save me the effort of waving this thread in your faces.
I suggest that all the elitist know-it-alls who are pretending to be telepathic prophets of doom, decrying that ESO will be F2P in a year, to bookmark this thread.
Assuming I am correct that the game will still be P4P after 1 year, you'll save me the effort of waving this thread in your faces.
As it seems likely that the game will also (like FF XIV) be on the PS4, then the chances are it will be a much much bigger game than even GW2, i don't think its a game i would be interested in myself, given all the heavy instancing in the game (outside of PVP at least) but i will admit that there probably is a market for it. Eve survives very well given its a classic 'niche' game, if zenimax can pull it all together into some decent gameplay, then anything is possible.
P.S: Please do bookmark this statement for when the game goes F2P or B2P (like TSW did) so you can wave it at their faces when the time comes
Kind of a bad example. Ragnar said TSW couldn't go F2P and keep the production schedule that they wanted.
I like TSW current business model a lot, but I wouldn't say it's the only one that will work.
F2P doesn't work either and I feel a lot of people are against now more than ever. They gave it a shot with Neverwinter and realized just how bad F2P can be. Unlike a sub model there are plenty of examples where F2P is more about running into roadblocks placed in front of you with game design for the sole purpose to get you to spend money.
Here's the deal when looking at it from a development standpoint. You look at how much you spend each month and how much to expect to get in return. In a sub model the revenue is predictable. You can look at the number of players, the number of months subscription per account and extrapolate from there. A F2P model is not stable and requires a different formula. Mainly you need to look at what items or things in a cash shop sells the most and then steer game design to require you to spend more as you progress. This way they will encourage you to spend more money through micro-transactions.
Game design is often built around milking you of your money. It's a scam. If anything, the pro F2P crowd should be happy when a game is built as a sub. That means if the game does end up going F2P/B2P later, there's at least a chance of them doing something like TSW and making a model that works. Instead of one built to rip you off.
Originally posted by Swids2010 Its not a case of IF elder scrolls will have a subscription as the developers have said numerous times that the game will never be able to run on a free to play option.
That is a blatant lie that one would expect from a major corporation. The dozens of F2P games (whether good or bad, doesnt matter) and B2P games just prove that.
It might be a bad example but also look at games like CoD or Battlefield 4, you buy them and you play the game, mostly ONLINE with no added fees. Most servers are not player hosted, so there are those server ran by the developers, which should cost shitton of money according to Zenimax right? Wrong!
P.S: Please do bookmark this statement for when the game goes F2P or B2P (like TSW did) so you can wave it at their faces when the time comes
Open world b2p games haven't proven anything yet.
If anything, they have proven that they still need a cash shop.
And games that need a cash shop are reliant upon an unknown amount of income every month.
And as you have pointed pointed out, costs for players to connect are lower.
but what you and other always avoid is that after the development and release "how much money does it take to continue to actually run the company and continue active development.
And it's not really hard to figure out, just time consuming.
pick a city, figure out how much it costs for commercial real estate, figure out the insurance costs, taxes, etc. Then look at how many people are employeed, what their jobs are and find out the median salary. I believe about 60k and probably a lot more for someone with experience. Just basically take all the parts of a game development team and start plugging in salaries. Of course then you are going to have to figure out health benefits, training, 401k etc.
Now, what about licenses and tools? essentially these games are costing many millions of dollars and once that game is released it's going to cost many millions of dollars to maintain the longevity of the company add content and hopefully an expansion at some point.
And what if the company just about breaks even or doesn't quite make up their development costs? What use is a game that isn't going to be around for a long time?
Most of the cash shop games rely upon whales. I think if I owned a company it would make me very nervous to have a small segment of my customer base paying the lion's share of my income, especially as gamers are fickle and always looking for the next big thing.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I voted maybe, but the probability is nay. Too many other good F2P MMOs to enjoy are released already. Too many past subscription MMOs have promised & failed to deliver then transitioned to a F2P/Subscription model. I currently play a few F2P MMOs with a paying model optional. I concede some of these hybrids are more generous then some are more coersive. If the game is fun & delivers as F2P then I do not mind at all offering my monetary contributions time to time. I love the ES franchise, I even still have my DOS versions of Daggerfall & Battlespire then have the Morrowinds & Oblivions & plan to eventually purchase Skyrim. I hope this ESO succeeds & I am enthusiastic about it, but nowadays marketing alone wont sell a game for me. I want it to be substantial then I'll invest, hence I'll wait & see as well.
Comments
As you say a sub model in and of itself has its place. Many people pay subs for a wide range of products: National Geographic, golf memberships, Xbox Live - lots of things.
Once the monthly sub paid for very expensive networks. Today that is no longer the case. Guild War's "play free forever" forever slogan says it all. The monthly sub pays for ..... all to often promises of what might be in 3 or 6 months.
The sub needs to be turned on its head and brought into the current world.
Old way: $180 per year for server access + free content. People sub until they get bored. People who sub every 12th month get a whole year of extra content free.
New way: $180 (say) for new content + free online play time. People stop buying new content when they get bored. No free loading subscribers.
So post launch people get an option to buy the Thieves Guild storyline; $15 with 30 days online play for free; Dark Brotherhood, $20 maybe with 40 days online play included for free. With additional time being available at a price that bears some resemblance to the costs involved: $10 for a year perhaps.
Matt Frior's "excuse" for wanting to go down a subscription route is that Zenimax don't want players to come to a dungeon and then be faced with a pop-up saying go spend 50 credits. What sort of pop up are Zennimax planning when someone fires up the game without a sub: non-subscriber go spend $15.
Simple concept: pay for content, online access "free".
Not pay unrealistic sums that cannot be defended for online access; promise of future content "free".
the problem is just that there are too many F2P and B2P medicore or just plan bad MMO's. My time is worth too much to me to waste it on such, so I'd much rather have a decent/good MMO to play even if there is subscription Thus yes I would pay to play ESO.
The old adage that you get what you pay for is more true then most people think. Companies make their games F2P and B2P frequently because they know they just are worth a monthly subscription. They cn get away with poor ass grind expansions Like GW2 has done recently because they know players can't really complain as its free. Though in all reality nothing is ever really free. If you want to play reasonably you will be buying bags or whatever items they push you into needing from their cash shops. TSW maybe the only game yet that hasn't really gone that route as I don't really feel the cosmetic items are a must or make game play vastly improved.(unlike say the need for gear space and thus need to buy bags.)
Don't you ever get tired of being nickled and dimed at every corner, and in the end paying way more then a subscription for bits and pieces so you can cover both your playing and the free loading players that pay nothing? Really theres nothing Free in free 2 play unless you have nothing to do all day but play to make up the difference. SOE's f2p model has already been shown to be much more expensive then their standard subfor even less items.
People see F2P or B2P and think yeah I'm getting over, but once everything is adding in they more time then not are actually being taken to the bank with overall costs frequently hundreds of dollars more a year then if they simply payed a subscription
Stop right there! Stop spreading false rumors about something that you do not understand AT ALL. You know, when you get certain level of achievement points you get free gems by the hundreds. Also you can always at any given time exchange gold into gems virtually making ANYTHING in the cash shop available to you with ingame currency which btw is super easy to come by if you try.
But yeah easier to play smart on a forum than taking on the challenge
P.S: Even though i pay for goods in the cash shop (understand - skins, consumables etc), I've bought character slots bank space and bag space completely with gold on the headstart
And yeah I pay in Gw2 because I like the developer and that is how I show my support, NOT because I am forced to do so. There are those months that I do not pay for various reasons.
In 10 days they are adding 3 new fractal dungeons ... not 1, not 2, but 3 ! Revamping other systems alongside with it. All that for absolutely no cost at all. Now tell me how a P2P MMO is better than that. WoW charges you for your expansions
Not to mention that Gw2 has one of the deepest most intertwined lore out there
This ^ is where I'm at with MMOs.
F2P is a nice model to test drive a game, though if I enjoy it, I prefer to subscribe anyway so as to save money over the next year. Having to pay for character slots, inventory slots, auction / trade slots, mail feature unlocks, level cap unlocks, gear unlocks, and even content unlocks really adds up to far more than a monthly fee.
That ESO is coming out of the gate with a subscription model is ok with me.
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I actually *hope* it's got a monthly fee, and that it's worth that monthly fee.
F2P destroys games for me. They become flooded with morons and the whole thing starts to feel like a skeevy carnival, with little pieces of crap for sale every five paces.
Not sure how you got "free-to-play" from "paying for the new content" every 4-6 weeks. What I said was that the current sub model needs to be turned on its head.
F2P implies micro-transactions, nickel and diming as you say, paying for slots whatever ...
Paying for new content wouldn't be a micro-transaction. Say Zenimax release 2 content drops in 12 weeks and charge $22.50 for each then you would pay $45 in 3 months. You could even "subscribe" to "auto-purchase" all the new content (with suitable safeguards).
That's not a F2P type cash shop.
You could continue to play what you have bought for free (or for a small charge) even if you decide not to purchase any new content. Let me say that again. You could continue to play what you have already bought.
This idea that you pay $15 for the network costs and then expect to get the content for free is nonsense. Too many subscribers expect to get content for nothing. Too many smart subscribers pop in and out of games and get the new content for free.
Network costs are relatively inexpensive. Games like Guild War prove that. Content is what costs. Far to often a monthly sub these days results in nothing more than trivial content drops followed by paid for expansions. Its false. It leads to people complaining. And then they stop subscribing. Followed recently by games going F2P and lots of smoke and mirrors about how many accounts they have.
People shouldn't expect something for nothing but they can expect to pay for what they get and its reasonable that they can carry on playing what they have bought once they have bought it. Simple. Clean. The current sub model is nonsense.
Speak for yourself...
I will pre-order/sub
They are banking on the idea that people liked GW2 soo much that they would be willing to pay a monthly fee for a game just like it instead of just playing GW2 for free.
I wonder what will happen.
That is a blatant lie that one would expect from a major corporation. The dozens of F2P games (whether good or bad, doesnt matter) and B2P games just prove that.
It might be a bad example but also look at games like CoD or Battlefield 4, you buy them and you play the game, mostly ONLINE with no added fees. Most servers are not player hosted, so there are those server ran by the developers, which should cost shitton of money according to Zenimax right? Wrong!
P.S: Please do bookmark this statement for when the game goes F2P or B2P (like TSW did) so you can wave it at their faces when the time comes
Agree. Zenimax may have no desire to run the game without a sub but other games show that there are other, arguably smarter ways to generate money. And I am not talking about free-to-play.
Sk1ppeR mentioned Battlefield - one of several successful non-sub / non-F2P games.
You can play the game you buy without having to pay extra. It has no sub. .Didn't stop EA booking $121M in premium subscriptions however in fiscal 2013. That's over and above what it made from individual DLC purchases.
Most successful games of late have smart pricing. Paid for DLC; a premium sub option; an extra charge for co-op play - there are various combinations. They all allow you to play the core game - that you bought - at no extra charge. To play the game you bought. And they have a clear link between what you can pay extra and what you will get in return. In B3, for example, EA committed to providing 5 content drops. Surely Zenimax are as capable as EA!
If they stick with their current plan my fear is that TESO will be a niche game. Or worse.
I totally agree because when it does go F2P and its is when not if I cant wait to throw these daft comments the developers keep making about not being able to run the game as a F2P option.
I suggest that all the elitist know-it-alls who are pretending to be telepathic prophets of doom, decrying that ESO will be F2P in a year, to bookmark this thread.
Assuming I am correct that the game will still be P4P after 1 year, you'll save me the effort of waving this thread in your faces.
As it seems likely that the game will also (like FF XIV) be on the PS4, then the chances are it will be a much much bigger game than even GW2, i don't think its a game i would be interested in myself, given all the heavy instancing in the game (outside of PVP at least) but i will admit that there probably is a market for it. Eve survives very well given its a classic 'niche' game, if zenimax can pull it all together into some decent gameplay, then anything is possible.
Kind of a bad example. Ragnar said TSW couldn't go F2P and keep the production schedule that they wanted.
I like TSW current business model a lot, but I wouldn't say it's the only one that will work.
F2P doesn't work either and I feel a lot of people are against now more than ever. They gave it a shot with Neverwinter and realized just how bad F2P can be. Unlike a sub model there are plenty of examples where F2P is more about running into roadblocks placed in front of you with game design for the sole purpose to get you to spend money.
Here's the deal when looking at it from a development standpoint. You look at how much you spend each month and how much to expect to get in return. In a sub model the revenue is predictable. You can look at the number of players, the number of months subscription per account and extrapolate from there. A F2P model is not stable and requires a different formula. Mainly you need to look at what items or things in a cash shop sells the most and then steer game design to require you to spend more as you progress. This way they will encourage you to spend more money through micro-transactions.
Game design is often built around milking you of your money. It's a scam. If anything, the pro F2P crowd should be happy when a game is built as a sub. That means if the game does end up going F2P/B2P later, there's at least a chance of them doing something like TSW and making a model that works. Instead of one built to rip you off.
No. I played the beta it was kind of boring. Don't think this game can survive long with this business model.
They should have gone B2P like guildwars 2.
Open world b2p games haven't proven anything yet.
If anything, they have proven that they still need a cash shop.
And games that need a cash shop are reliant upon an unknown amount of income every month.
And as you have pointed pointed out, costs for players to connect are lower.
but what you and other always avoid is that after the development and release "how much money does it take to continue to actually run the company and continue active development.
And it's not really hard to figure out, just time consuming.
pick a city, figure out how much it costs for commercial real estate, figure out the insurance costs, taxes, etc. Then look at how many people are employeed, what their jobs are and find out the median salary. I believe about 60k and probably a lot more for someone with experience. Just basically take all the parts of a game development team and start plugging in salaries. Of course then you are going to have to figure out health benefits, training, 401k etc.
Now, what about licenses and tools? essentially these games are costing many millions of dollars and once that game is released it's going to cost many millions of dollars to maintain the longevity of the company add content and hopefully an expansion at some point.
And what if the company just about breaks even or doesn't quite make up their development costs? What use is a game that isn't going to be around for a long time?
Most of the cash shop games rely upon whales. I think if I owned a company it would make me very nervous to have a small segment of my customer base paying the lion's share of my income, especially as gamers are fickle and always looking for the next big thing.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo