Back in the day we'd say "Less QQ, more pew pew." Is that still a thing?
Honestly, if players ACTUALLY bought into the subscriber model, then it'd still be a thing. When you have AAA MMOs with subscription options shipping and then converting to F2P within a year, nuff said.
Now I know what people are going to say, "....but it's not what I want.....", "....it's sucky...", "....they ruined X...". Well........ TADA!!!!!! Sooooooooo, less QQ, more pew pew.
You and me both, the cash shop has been the single worst thing to happen to gaming. Thanks Eastern developers for the cancer that is Free 2 Play. Its the gift that keeps on giving in new and fantastically horrible ways.
You know it was Turbine that introduced this to NA gaming with Dungeons and Dragons when it was flailing. Then it was considered a saviour as it saved the game and brought back a population and revenue. I think the system itself is not the problem it's the fact that companies create better items for the shops and concentrate their best efforts on the shop that is the issue.
You and me both, the cash shop has been the single worst thing to happen to gaming. Thanks Eastern developers for the cancer that is Free 2 Play. Its the gift that keeps on giving in new and fantastically horrible ways.
You know it was Turbine that introduced this to NA gaming with Dungeons and Dragons when it was flailing. Then it was considered a saviour as it saved the game and brought back a population and revenue. I think the system itself is not the problem it's the fact that companies create better items for the shops and concentrate their best efforts on the shop that is the issue.
Your correct that it can be used responsibly, but it rarely ever is. Any game that launches as a F2P, notice I say launches and not CONVERTED is going to be designed around the cash shop, regardless if it's just cosmetics, etc. Cash shops don't work unless they are an extension of the game.
You and me both, the cash shop has been the single worst thing to happen to gaming. Thanks Eastern developers for the cancer that is Free 2 Play. Its the gift that keeps on giving in new and fantastically horrible ways.
Was it really so much better though? Take out all the cash shops in most mmos today, and what are you left with? It's basically the same game still, except you're not renting it anymore, and you get an option to purchase cosmetics and convenience items. Most mmos have restrained putting P2W items in their cash shops.
You and me both, the cash shop has been the single worst thing to happen to gaming. Thanks Eastern developers for the cancer that is Free 2 Play. Its the gift that keeps on giving in new and fantastically horrible ways.
Was it really so much better though? Take out all the cash shops in most mmos today, and what are you left with? It's basically the same game still, except you're not renting it anymore, and you get an option to purchase cosmetics and convenience items. Most mmos have restrained putting P2W items in their cash shops.
+1 and pre-cash shop it was only about gold buying. It's essentially business as usual. I'd be very interested to see an infographic about what it would cost to do F2P versus P2P. My guess is that there is very little difference, even in the form of advantage, in the majority of games.
I prefer sub over any other model as long as everything is included. I don't mind a cash shop that sells only appearance skins or mounts, no xp buffs, no craft stuff at all, etc... There is no such thing as free to play either all of them should be labeled free to try. If you can't do everything the game offers without purchasing stuff from the cash shop it is not free to play - really looking at crafting and upgrading the most here. Unfortunately developers have figured out a lot of people will not keep track of what they spend and end up spending 10 to 20x's what they would in a year for an actual sub game.
F2P is evolution, not devolution since while I've been waiting for these "great" MMO's the F2P ones been there, helping me kill the time and enjoying em for what they offer while spending $0.00.
What's missing is quality products that clearly separate themselves from the F2P ones out there we have as options and like poster above said, and many others would gladly pay $25-35 a month for a premium quality experience. Sadly, we have not seen anyone come with higher sub model, but endless F2P ones with cash shops.
Invest 50-100 mil in AAA MMO and charge $29.99 a month (no box fee or DLC or cash shops) then as your player base grows feel free to lower to $24.99 or even $19.99. Bottom line, this $15 a month has not changed for over a decade, and companies need to realize they are allowed to charge as much as they please and change their cost for their product at any time. It's their product after all.
I don't miss subscription MMO's. It has been shown by some studies that people play sub games more because they feel they want to get their money's worth. They are enjoying the games, they are treating more like work - NO THANKS!
Hopefully the sub model makes a comeback. I seriously can't play another cash shop MMO. It sucks. I'd easily pay $25/month for the right game.
Would you though? Every month with no content patches?
When subs were introduced the sub paid for the servers, network, network software, database support staffetc. It was expensive. People knew this. They accepted it.
Network costs dropped. There was no longer any proper justification. GW1 was the final proof that this was the case. People recognised it and became unhappy about paying a sub. So NCSoft promoted an idea first launced with AC - and took it to the next level.
The model: pay a sub and get "significant" "free" quarterly updates. Note: for e.g. EQ1 you paid a sub AND you paid for new content. And WoW followed, DAoC said it would include "free" content etc. etc.
And that imo was the big bad problem. No longer did people expect to pay for content. Buy a game, leave for a year, pay a monthly sub and come back to freeload on the previous years patches. The era of subscription freeloaders had been introduced. The link between paying and content was broken.
And content is expensive to produce and so over time content patches dried up. So what you have now is not pay a sub because the network stuff is expensive it is simply pay a sub so we can e.g. spend $5.4B buying King.
So I prefer b2p. Whether it is Destiny or TESO. Buy the game and then buy the quarterly DLC say. No pay, no play; no content, no pay. Think how that idea would play out in a store? Oh wait that is the norm.
I can understand why you feel sad but choosing to measure your success by what others are doing in a game is what is causing your misery. What difference does it make if others spend real cash? If you change your attitude you'd still be enjoying playing these games.
You missed my point entirely. Im not measuring my success by what others do, I measure it by what I do. Or rather how boring, easy and cheap it is to get. It makes the whole thing worthless and the item tawdry. If someone sold you their Nobel Peace prize for $5, would you feel proud of it? Probably not, you did nothing for it. Id probably sell it for a profit and call it a day. Now imagine if the committee started selling them for $5 to anyone who'd buy it, itd make the entire thing worthless, even if they continued to give them to those who earn it. Same principle applies here (to a lesser extent, obviously).
As for your last sentence... youre basically saying ill enjoy "modern pop music" more if I just "change my attitude" towards Beiber music. Not only is that impossible to anyone thats actually heard good music made by talented artists... most "modern pop music" is just terrible.
And there is a good P2P mmo already. Stop whining and head to FFXIV.
That game is P2P on the technicality that it requires a sub to play it. The fact they double dip with the cash shop and bank space only makes it worse than F2P and B2P, not better.
So one person says that you notice whether a game was designed for a sub, B2P or F2P, and the other says he can't stand ESO - which had a sub, and is still B2P. So even if they paid you to play it, you should still see the glorious "subcription-based design". Why is it boring then? Same with FFXIV. It's sub-based, so per definition has a better design. But oh, suddenly there's more to it.
What about WoW or EVE? Even if you can't stand the visuals or don't like the excel-simulator, the design is "sub-based", so it must be good. Right?
Also, all games double or triple dip. Heck, on console you get to pay four times on occasion. Network subscription, box price, expansions, cash shop.
I go to the cinema once in a blue moon and i still pay more for it on average then on MMOs. I'd actually pay more for MMOs or games in general if i'd feel the developer and publisher actually treat their customers as valuable. If they can fix bugs that give players an advantage within days, but the game still crashes every second day months after release, nope, no money from me.
Also, in none of the free to play games i played i'd have to pay to get to the top 1%. I'd guess i made it to the top 10% or higher simply by playing quite a lot (so, all spare time), and i'd made it to the top 1% if i had only run the most profitable dungeons etc. I usually prefered to do various things because grinding the same dungeon 100 times a day isn't fun, no matter how profitable.
What is usually more difficult to get are nice outfits or mounts. Like, in Blade & Soul, they hide almost all nice outfits in the cash shop, and in Neverwinter it was the non-standard mounts (anything thats not a horse, and half the horses). If there's a currency exchange you could even such things, assuming you have gold to spare, which you do when you are in the top 1%.
In DDO you can buy the content with tokens you can get from playing. IIRC, the grind required was actually bearable if you are into alts (i usually only play one character) and if you did it in the right order, so the packs that let you acquire the most tokens (for the next pack etc.) for you money first.
We also have nice non-MMO examples like Call of Duty or the yearly sports games. Just because they sell you a full price game each year, which is almost like a subscription, you don't get the DLC for free. And the games don't get better either, on the contrary.
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
So one person says that you notice whether a game was designed for a sub, B2P or F2P, and the other says he can't stand ESO - which had a sub, and is still B2P. So even if they paid you to play it, you should still see the glorious "subcription-based design". Why is it boring then? <snip>
Lots of good points in the post. I didn't pick up on the ESO comments initially - it was indeed released as a sub game and as a result does have stuff that "slow it down" compared to other ES titles.
And if the poster above - who called ESO boring - does like games that reward a character with more power as a result of stuff done then ESO is such a game. The fact it has cash shop cosmetic mounts in it doesn't alter that fact. If you don't like ESO - or any game though - you don't like it.
And as Anireth says there are a multiple examples of games that require continual payments - which may be annual. And there is - usually - a quid pro quo in such cases; the company provides X in return for a sum of money. As it should be. Players should pay but in return companies should deliver. And if people decide what is being offered is to expensive don't buy. Whether that is a sub, a DLC or a cash shop purchase.
And there is a good P2P mmo already. Stop whining and head to FFXIV.
That game is P2P on the technicality that it requires a sub to play it. The fact they double dip with the cash shop and bank space only makes it worse than F2P and B2P, not better.
It's P2P in that it still very much feels like a P2P MMO...
The cash shop is very optional, as there are still lots of mounts, costumes, pets, etc. to be had in-game, and more added with every patch / event. Many of these require significant effort to get (others are rather easy to get), so the feeling of getting something rare (or seeing someone else with something rare) is still very much there... as is the feeling of seeing someone with a cash shop mount / pet / costume and not caring.
The bank space is a bit different, but it's basically just a higher sub fee (in the order of $2-4) for those that want a bit more convenience; not a big deal, and I certainly don't feel disadvantaged for not paying it.
Also, unlike a certain other MMO, content updates are reasonably frequent, and tend to contain a bit of something for everyone, so (unlike that certain other MMO even when it did have content updates) it does feel like the subscription fee is worth something.
Back in the day we'd say "Less QQ, more pew pew." Is that still a thing?
Honestly, if players ACTUALLY bought into the subscriber model, then it'd still be a thing. When you have AAA MMOs with subscription options shipping and then converting to F2P within a year, nuff said.
Now I know what people are going to say, "....but it's not what I want.....", "....it's sucky...", "....they ruined X...". Well........ TADA!!!!!! Sooooooooo, less QQ, more pew pew.
It was change to "Less pew pew more loot loot!". That and participation trophies.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
The days of the big, expensive, mmorpg....that required a subscription to pay for the continual development and maintenance of the game is over man.
Free to play started to rise as the mmorpg industry started to fall. It was a ruse to inflate numbers, to mask failing games. Eventually some of these failures started to do better when free because it left those with money un restricted in how much they could spend.
Games started to trend to chase those big spenders as they started to become unable to support the insanely expensive games they were making with a standard subscription (lack of players long term)
So then they figured out you could do the same targeted feeding frenzy wallet fight between the big spenders with putting almost no effort into development via the mobile market.
We all miss those pay to play games. I loved the fair content and the cheap overall cost. I hated the fact that I felt locked into a game, or locked out. Most often id take a short break but never come back due to never wanting to spend $15 to putz around and see if I can get pulled in.
I hate the free to play model though, what it does to a games development. It needs to be designed to make money, rather than just being fun, in fact they often design the game to be unfun less you pay for the convenience items.
I love buy to play. It cant support a lifelong development without micro transactions.
In the end, after over a decade of mmorpg gaming. Ill take a $60 RPG on steam anyday, though my time playing those pay to play games were fantastic and the highlight of that particular gaming stretch of my life.
These days though. Its those all about mobile and browser games. That's where the money is. The only mmorpgs that are on the horizon are upstart companies trying to reinvent the old days...which is fine...but no one is going to spend the money to innovate (not marking term innovate but real innovation) mmorpgs to the point where enough people will stay long enough to make p2p a viable model.
In short. I miss those old days of p2p mmorpg games.
I am fine with sub based mmo's, its just that for a monthly fee I expect better quality in many areas and there just many games out there that warrant that fee, imo.
If it is B2p I expect less, but still a well made game, if it is F2p then I honestly dont expect anything. I have found that at least finding a quality f2p game, like say Skyforge, is a welcome surprise. Where both B2p and P2P formats have gotten no surprises from me in years.
Its really all about expectations and monthly fees just demand a higher level of quality than most of the industry provides today.
I miss sub based where everyone is on an even playing field type of games too being from the older generation. The closest thing you get these days is f2p with some kind of vip program which is the equivilant of a sub but then they add a cash shop on top of that. It's going to keep happening because people keep buying and using cash shops. Not a good time for MMORPG gaming sadly. There are still some out there for the old school crowd but kids these days wouldn't be interested in so they have a very small playerbase and are very rarely welcoming to new people.
You're confusing design choices with payment model. The only thing I actually like about BDO is its character creator, and even then it's limited by the developers' choice in design via gender-locking. What did you expect with it? At it's core, it is an Asian game that was created to cater to the market that is most successful in Asia -- F2P, action based combat, cash shop, flashy effects, and grinding. Compare it to other F2P / B2P games and you will see the difference. GW2 and DDO are 2 examples. One was designed from the ground up and the other was a conversion, but both manage regular content updates without nickle and diming you to death via the cash shop, or offering pay to win type items. There's an argument to be made either way for SWTOR, I guess, but at least there you get quality story updates at a regular pace.
BDO, on the other hand . . . I can't really help you. Given the game's history in Russia and Korea, prior to NA launch, it should have been obvious the route it would take. At least to anyone not blinded by the hype.
I dont miss them one iota....SPent way too much money because we had no other option back in the day...Never felt like I got my moneys worth having to pay a monthly
Comments
Honestly, if players ACTUALLY bought into the subscriber model, then it'd still be a thing. When you have AAA MMOs with subscription options shipping and then converting to F2P within a year, nuff said.
Now I know what people are going to say, "....but it's not what I want.....", "....it's sucky...", "....they ruined X...". Well........ TADA!!!!!! Sooooooooo, less QQ, more pew pew.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
Your correct that it can be used responsibly, but it rarely ever is. Any game that launches as a F2P, notice I say launches and not CONVERTED is going to be designed around the cash shop, regardless if it's just cosmetics, etc. Cash shops don't work unless they are an extension of the game.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
What's missing is quality products that clearly separate themselves from the F2P ones out there we have as options and like poster above said, and many others would gladly pay $25-35 a month for a premium quality experience. Sadly, we have not seen anyone come with higher sub model, but endless F2P ones with cash shops.
Invest 50-100 mil in AAA MMO and charge $29.99 a month (no box fee or DLC or cash shops) then as your player base grows feel free to lower to $24.99 or even $19.99. Bottom line, this $15 a month has not changed for over a decade, and companies need to realize they are allowed to charge as much as they please and change their cost for their product at any time. It's their product after all.
When subs were introduced the sub paid for the servers, network, network software, database support staffetc. It was expensive. People knew this. They accepted it.
Network costs dropped. There was no longer any proper justification. GW1 was the final proof that this was the case. People recognised it and became unhappy about paying a sub. So NCSoft promoted an idea first launced with AC - and took it to the next level.
The model: pay a sub and get "significant" "free" quarterly updates. Note: for e.g. EQ1 you paid a sub AND you paid for new content. And WoW followed, DAoC said it would include "free" content etc. etc.
And that imo was the big bad problem. No longer did people expect to pay for content. Buy a game, leave for a year, pay a monthly sub and come back to freeload on the previous years patches. The era of subscription freeloaders had been introduced. The link between paying and content was broken.
And content is expensive to produce and so over time content patches dried up. So what you have now is not pay a sub because the network stuff is expensive it is simply pay a sub so we can e.g. spend $5.4B buying King.
So I prefer b2p. Whether it is Destiny or TESO. Buy the game and then buy the quarterly DLC say. No pay, no play; no content, no pay. Think how that idea would play out in a store? Oh wait that is the norm.
As for your last sentence... youre basically saying ill enjoy "modern pop music" more if I just "change my attitude" towards Beiber music. Not only is that impossible to anyone thats actually heard good music made by talented artists... most "modern pop music" is just terrible.
That game is P2P on the technicality that it requires a sub to play it. The fact they double dip with the cash shop and bank space only makes it worse than F2P and B2P, not better.
What about WoW or EVE? Even if you can't stand the visuals or don't like the excel-simulator, the design is "sub-based", so it must be good. Right?
Also, all games double or triple dip. Heck, on console you get to pay four times on occasion. Network subscription, box price, expansions, cash shop.
I go to the cinema once in a blue moon and i still pay more for it on average then on MMOs. I'd actually pay more for MMOs or games in general if i'd feel the developer and publisher actually treat their customers as valuable. If they can fix bugs that give players an advantage within days, but the game still crashes every second day months after release, nope, no money from me.
Also, in none of the free to play games i played i'd have to pay to get to the top 1%. I'd guess i made it to the top 10% or higher simply by playing quite a lot (so, all spare time), and i'd made it to the top 1% if i had only run the most profitable dungeons etc. I usually prefered to do various things because grinding the same dungeon 100 times a day isn't fun, no matter how profitable.
What is usually more difficult to get are nice outfits or mounts. Like, in Blade & Soul, they hide almost all nice outfits in the cash shop, and in Neverwinter it was the non-standard mounts (anything thats not a horse, and half the horses). If there's a currency exchange you could even such things, assuming you have gold to spare, which you do when you are in the top 1%.
In DDO you can buy the content with tokens you can get from playing. IIRC, the grind required was actually bearable if you are into alts (i usually only play one character) and if you did it in the right order, so the packs that let you acquire the most tokens (for the next pack etc.) for you money first.
We also have nice non-MMO examples like Call of Duty or the yearly sports games. Just because they sell you a full price game each year, which is almost like a subscription, you don't get the DLC for free. And the games don't get better either, on the contrary.
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high
And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll
Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde
And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
And if the poster above - who called ESO boring - does like games that reward a character with more power as a result of stuff done then ESO is such a game. The fact it has cash shop cosmetic mounts in it doesn't alter that fact. If you don't like ESO - or any game though - you don't like it.
And as Anireth says there are a multiple examples of games that require continual payments - which may be annual. And there is - usually - a quid pro quo in such cases; the company provides X in return for a sum of money. As it should be. Players should pay but in return companies should deliver. And if people decide what is being offered is to expensive don't buy. Whether that is a sub, a DLC or a cash shop purchase.
The cash shop is very optional, as there are still lots of mounts, costumes, pets, etc. to be had in-game, and more added with every patch / event. Many of these require significant effort to get (others are rather easy to get), so the feeling of getting something rare (or seeing someone else with something rare) is still very much there... as is the feeling of seeing someone with a cash shop mount / pet / costume and not caring.
The bank space is a bit different, but it's basically just a higher sub fee (in the order of $2-4) for those that want a bit more convenience; not a big deal, and I certainly don't feel disadvantaged for not paying it.
Also, unlike a certain other MMO, content updates are reasonably frequent, and tend to contain a bit of something for everyone, so (unlike that certain other MMO even when it did have content updates) it does feel like the subscription fee is worth something.
It was change to "Less pew pew more loot loot!". That and participation trophies.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
The days of the big, expensive, mmorpg....that required a subscription to pay for the continual development and maintenance of the game is over man.
Free to play started to rise as the mmorpg industry started to fall. It was a ruse to inflate numbers, to mask failing games. Eventually some of these failures started to do better when free because it left those with money un restricted in how much they could spend.
Games started to trend to chase those big spenders as they started to become unable to support the insanely expensive games they were making with a standard subscription (lack of players long term)
So then they figured out you could do the same targeted feeding frenzy wallet fight between the big spenders with putting almost no effort into development via the mobile market.
We all miss those pay to play games. I loved the fair content and the cheap overall cost. I hated the fact that I felt locked into a game, or locked out. Most often id take a short break but never come back due to never wanting to spend $15 to putz around and see if I can get pulled in.
I hate the free to play model though, what it does to a games development. It needs to be designed to make money, rather than just being fun, in fact they often design the game to be unfun less you pay for the convenience items.
I love buy to play. It cant support a lifelong development without micro transactions.
In the end, after over a decade of mmorpg gaming. Ill take a $60 RPG on steam anyday, though my time playing those pay to play games were fantastic and the highlight of that particular gaming stretch of my life.
These days though. Its those all about mobile and browser games. That's where the money is. The only mmorpgs that are on the horizon are upstart companies trying to reinvent the old days...which is fine...but no one is going to spend the money to innovate (not marking term innovate but real innovation) mmorpgs to the point where enough people will stay long enough to make p2p a viable model.
In short. I miss those old days of p2p mmorpg games.
If it is B2p I expect less, but still a well made game, if it is F2p then I honestly dont expect anything. I have found that at least finding a quality f2p game, like say Skyforge, is a welcome surprise. Where both B2p and P2P formats have gotten no surprises from me in years.
Its really all about expectations and monthly fees just demand a higher level of quality than most of the industry provides today.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
BDO, on the other hand . . . I can't really help you. Given the game's history in Russia and Korea, prior to NA launch, it should have been obvious the route it would take. At least to anyone not blinded by the hype.