short answer: no offcourse not, theres on the box that its a one time pay so it would be illegal anyway but why should you even want to pay for a game if it could be free (almost then)?
What makes GW a success in today's over-crowded MMO market is the ability to differentiate and innovate. This game can be played casually. With no monthly fee, there is no urge to keep playing in order to make the most of it. One can confine play to the week-ends or switch off for a few weeks without having to worry about paying for something that is not being fully used. Also, one can easily keep up with the game without sinking too much time in it because success is based on skill -- not level.
For me, it is not a question of affordability or budget. I believe that if the economic model of the game is changed, the nature of the game will also change. If a monthly fee was introduced, there would be an incentive to keep players in the game for as long as possible. Level 20 cap and clever choice of skills will be replaced by mindless grind for level and items (more like WOW). A lot of casual players like me (with family and career) would leave the game.
First of all i wanna let you guys know that i don't play GW ,... i am a FFXI person myself. So before anyone start giving me crap about i don't know what the hell i talk about i am just responding to most of the topics posted.
Should GW have a monthly fee ? In my opinion YES. It's obviously one of the best MMO's out there and the sence of prestige will do it good actually. Have anyone of you ever thought that NOT paying for a service can cause to people thinking that is not a high quality game ? In all honesty i started out like that at first. I didn't believe the game was worth a shot BECAUSE it was free. I played silkroad online for a good few hours and i didn't wanna go through that shit again. Free games to me = Bots running around and going wild on RMT activity.
But apparantly i was wrong to think like that on the game. GW i heard and read around forums has great updates and they keep the game "clean".
As for idiots and immature people. I DO believe they tend to go the free way because well..... they dont pay. It won't have a great impact on the game but people will leave if the introduction to a monthly fee was introduced. Most likely the ones you didnt want in the game anyways.
It sounds weird to say this but its been proven that clients prefer to actually pay for good service. If the game wasnt all that good i would understand it being free but with a potential like GW i really seriously honestly dont know why they keep it free.
I would try GW if i wasnt already playing FFXI. I just cant see myself buying another MMO for the reason i dont have to pay. I simply love FFXI and until that truly dies out i will stick to FFXI. WoW just sucks balls and people who pay for that load of crap obviously are just stupid. But let them stay on that game and we keep playing ours peacefully
If GW started charging per month I would not play.
I love the aspect of being able to play an MMO with no monthly fees. I can pick it up at any time or not play and not feel like I have too.
As people said before me, if a monthly fee were instituted it would become another MMO where they have you run instance x, y, and z 20 million times to enter instance v. That's one of the reasons I am leaving WoW - You should not have to go through an instance 20 times to get enough reputation with a faction just to be able to purchase a key to another instance, or worse yet, the same awful instance but harder, just to get into a bigger instance.
I dont think they should charge a monthly. One of the main eye-catchers was when i read it was a one time fee (per campain). I frequently find myself not able to play for weeks on end. Its nice to feel like i didnt waste a months subscription cost.
"if a monthly fee were instituted it would become another MMO where they have you run instance x, y, and z 20 million times to enter instance v. That's one of the reasons I am leaving WoW - You should not have to go through an instance 20 times to get enough reputation with a faction just to be able to purchase a key to another instance, or worse yet, the same awful instance but harder, just to get into a bigger instance."
QFT. I came to GW from City of Heroes in July of 05. Games that use a monthly subscription model - like CoH - tend to have high level caps (CoH was relatively low at 50, but just to get from level 49 to 50 required getting 5 million XP!) and huge grind. CoH, for instance, had you do the same boring "kill-all" mission on the same 5 or 6 maps literally hundreds of times. Someone once posted a chart illustrating how many monsters you would have to kill at each level to reach 50. The number was in the hundreds of thousands!
On top of that, the devs at Cryptic continually nerfed the hell out of virtually every character numerous times, so much so that levelling slowed to a crawl. To balance this effect somewhat, they cut the debt cap in half (whoopdeefreakingdoo!)
But the bottom line with a company like Cryptic - with a subscription-based business model - was that you could never get over the feeling that everything they did to that game they did solely to suck a little more money out of the paying customers, despite their protests to the contrary.
CoH/V was and remains an immensely painful grind.
A-Net's business model is better: create a game that's reasonably grind-free, is immensely fun and - best of all - is free to play and you'll not only make more money, but have happier customers. Nothing sells an on-line game like good word-of-mouth and good press.
What I love most about Guild Wars is the fact that there are no monthly fees, so I can feel free to explore other games and not feel guilty about not using my subscription.
I've taken several breaks where I only play GW long enough to do some quests and not get kicked from my alliance, and I've also played streteches where I spent several weeks playing 2-3 hours a night. RIght now I'm in GW break mode while I explore the Burning Crusade content, but I'll be back before the next expansion.
So no, if GW had a monthly fee my account would probably be as essentially dead as my SWG and COH accounts.
BTW paid accounts do not by themselves improve the gaming community - I'm quickly finding that out playing on a PVP server in WOW. What improves community is better policing on the part of ArenaNet, though they certainly have their work cut out.
Comments
What makes GW a success in today's over-crowded MMO market is the ability to differentiate and innovate. This game can be played casually. With no monthly fee, there is no urge to keep playing in order to make the most of it. One can confine play to the week-ends or switch off for a few weeks without having to worry about paying for something that is not being fully used. Also, one can easily keep up with the game without sinking too much time in it because success is based on skill -- not level.
For me, it is not a question of affordability or budget. I believe that if the economic model of the game is changed, the nature of the game will also change. If a monthly fee was introduced, there would be an incentive to keep players in the game for as long as possible. Level 20 cap and clever choice of skills will be replaced by mindless grind for level and items (more like WOW). A lot of casual players like me (with family and career) would leave the game.
P.S. I am on denial
Should GW have a monthly fee ? In my opinion YES. It's obviously one of the best MMO's out there and the sence of prestige will do it good actually. Have anyone of you ever thought that NOT paying for a service can cause to people thinking that is not a high quality game ? In all honesty i started out like that at first. I didn't believe the game was worth a shot BECAUSE it was free. I played silkroad online for a good few hours and i didn't wanna go through that shit again. Free games to me = Bots running around and going wild on RMT activity.
But apparantly i was wrong to think like that on the game. GW i heard and read around forums has great updates and they keep the game "clean".
As for idiots and immature people. I DO believe they tend to go the free way because well..... they dont pay. It won't have a great impact on the game but people will leave if the introduction to a monthly fee was introduced. Most likely the ones you didnt want in the game anyways.
It sounds weird to say this but its been proven that clients prefer to actually pay for good service. If the game wasnt all that good i would understand it being free but with a potential like GW i really seriously honestly dont know why they keep it free.
I would try GW if i wasnt already playing FFXI. I just cant see myself buying another MMO for the reason i dont have to pay. I simply love FFXI and until that truly dies out i will stick to FFXI. WoW just sucks balls and people who pay for that load of crap obviously are just stupid. But let them stay on that game and we keep playing ours peacefully
I love the aspect of being able to play an MMO with no monthly fees. I can pick it up at any time or not play and not feel like I have too.
As people said before me, if a monthly fee were instituted it would become another MMO where they have you run instance x, y, and z 20 million times to enter instance v. That's one of the reasons I am leaving WoW - You should not have to go through an instance 20 times to get enough reputation with a faction just to be able to purchase a key to another instance, or worse yet, the same awful instance but harder, just to get into a bigger instance.
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Final Fantasy 7
"if a monthly fee were instituted it would become another MMO where they have you run instance x, y, and z 20 million times to enter instance v. That's one of the reasons I am leaving WoW - You should not have to go through an instance 20 times to get enough reputation with a faction just to be able to purchase a key to another instance, or worse yet, the same awful instance but harder, just to get into a bigger instance."
QFT. I came to GW from City of Heroes in July of 05. Games that use a monthly subscription model - like CoH - tend to have high level caps (CoH was relatively low at 50, but just to get from level 49 to 50 required getting 5 million XP!) and huge grind. CoH, for instance, had you do the same boring "kill-all" mission on the same 5 or 6 maps literally hundreds of times. Someone once posted a chart illustrating how many monsters you would have to kill at each level to reach 50. The number was in the hundreds of thousands!
On top of that, the devs at Cryptic continually nerfed the hell out of virtually every character numerous times, so much so that levelling slowed to a crawl. To balance this effect somewhat, they cut the debt cap in half (whoopdeefreakingdoo!)
But the bottom line with a company like Cryptic - with a subscription-based business model - was that you could never get over the feeling that everything they did to that game they did solely to suck a little more money out of the paying customers, despite their protests to the contrary.
CoH/V was and remains an immensely painful grind.
A-Net's business model is better: create a game that's reasonably grind-free, is immensely fun and - best of all - is free to play and you'll not only make more money, but have happier customers. Nothing sells an on-line game like good word-of-mouth and good press.
What I love most about Guild Wars is the fact that there are no monthly fees, so I can feel free to explore other games and not feel guilty about not using my subscription.
I've taken several breaks where I only play GW long enough to do some quests and not get kicked from my alliance, and I've also played streteches where I spent several weeks playing 2-3 hours a night. RIght now I'm in GW break mode while I explore the Burning Crusade content, but I'll be back before the next expansion.
So no, if GW had a monthly fee my account would probably be as essentially dead as my SWG and COH accounts.
BTW paid accounts do not by themselves improve the gaming community - I'm quickly finding that out playing on a PVP server in WOW. What improves community is better policing on the part of ArenaNet, though they certainly have their work cut out.
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