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Would you pay more for quality?
Lodeclaw
Member Posts: 148
Alright. So I'm a role-player and in an MMORPG I crave social interaction on a personal level; that is, something more than "Level? Class? Wanna party? Y/N" Immersion, please.
On average, a pay to play MMORPG will cost you around US$15 per month and you get usually pretty shitty communities. So I was wondering, if you were given the opportunity to get into a pay to play MMORPG that promised to take care of it's in-game community and support quality experiences within the game world for a larger monthy fee, would you do it? For the sake of argument, let's say that the cost is US$25 per month instead of US$15 per month and to be fair, let's assume that the base cost to buy the game retail is minimal or free for download.
Would you pay $10 more for superior quality so that a developer could better take care of it's players and be able to sustain itself off of fewer subscriptions than a killer app like WoW?
Opinions are very welcome.
This thread comes to you on behalf of The Guild: Clan and Community.
(www.theguild.darkbb.com)
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Most definitely. I am sick and tired of immaturity. It really is a game-breaker.
Yes, i would pay more, no doubt about it.
Imagine a game that would ask double the normal subscription rate but in exchange would have servers with frequent GM-run events, changing story-lines, GM-enforced RP policies, GM-supported player-run events and the like. Of course it would be more expensive to run these servers, after all even GMs want a salary, but I would be more than happy to pay a higher subscription rate for that.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
These are the kinds of things I am planning on using if I am able to make my way into a development position for an MMORPG.
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The Guild is all about making MMORPGs more immersive, and more importantly, more fun! Join us!
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Hi,
I think it's impossible for developers to get their community 100% mature. Your community depends on the kind of game, the graphics, settings, etc. And by the way would you pay more for quality is your thread-title but what you actually mean is would you pay more for a better community.
If companies would try to keep their community mature that would mean they have to kick certain people for inmatureness. If you want a great game/community you should start playing games that are aimed at adults only. Games like EverQuest and EVE online. If you play games like WoW and Guild Wars you can expect a inmature community because those 2 games are so simple they can be played by younger and older gamers.
Greetz2Z
The more complicated/boring to kids the better off you are. Eve was a great point phatpetey. I'd pay more for better quality, but maybe for a community as well, though I've learned to shrug and let them be who they want to be.
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A human and an Elf get captured by Skaven. The rat-men are getting ready to shoot the first hostage with Dwarf-made guns when he yells, "Earthquake!" The naturally nervous Skaven run and hide from the imaginary threat. He escapes. The Skaven regroup and bring out the Elf. Being very smart, the Elf has figured out what to do. When the Skaven get ready to shoot, the Elf, in order to scare them, yells, "Fire!"
Order of the White Border.
I woulnt pay more then 15$ tbh,unless the game is atleast 80% original and a "TRUE" sandbox.
If you want a mature community,you will need to play MMOGs that are complex (sandbox),that doesnt hold your hand threw the game.Kids while whine,cry,moan,bitch,scream and rip their hairs off when they arent told what exactly they need to do.Kids these days lack imagination soo therefor in games they need classes soo they can define what they play etc.
EvE online is the best exemple of a mature community (ofcourse you will meet immature people aswell,but usualy those immature people are players who played for abit and cant cope with the gameplay and info and just try to ruin the game for everyone).
You will notice that alot of kids have picked up intrest in EVE because they see their +18 year old WoW guild mates going there and they think it's a WoW clone and they follow then they start screaming that the game sucks or start begging for isk etc and they get shown out the door by the mature players in a manner the kids understand (with smart insulting phrases),then the kids come back to public forums and whine how crappy the community and unhelpfull they are cause no one wanted to tell him "why cant he pick a class" or "how to undock" etc.
Indeed. Developers should realise the only thing kids like in MMORPGs is killing monsters and PvP'ing, and the easier you make that monster killing the more kids you will attract. A simple exemple: Runescape if you want to train your combat there you just have to click on a monster and wait for a while. Kids don't mind grinding and doing the same handling over and over again.
If you give kids a difficult game with alot of things you can edit. Like games where you have to spend your ability points or your skill points. I don't think kids like crafing either. All these things kids don't like I love. But because developers have to earn as much money as they can from a as huge as possible community why shouldn't they put in features kids like. Because if the kids play that's just some extra cash for them and since kids are very impulsive the friends of kid A will start playing thet same MMORPG as kid A.
I sure as hell would pay more for a better game.
Unfortunately... I'm not so sure that even if a HUGE number of gamers took my point of view, that any companies would actually try to turn out a higher quality, higher priced game.
Edit - 30% of you really wouldn't pay more for a better product, no matter what? You realize what that means, right? Imagine this. It's possible that 5 years from now there is a game out that is chock full of innovation, a truly revolutionary MMO, a game that has something for everyone, and a game that weaves those somethings together so perfectly that any style of player can play and find what they want. This game has, effectively, twice the quality of every other game on the market... its combat is twice as fun as the next best thing, its crafting is twice as detailed as the next best thing, its servers have half the latency as the next best thing, etc. This game costs 30 bucks a month.
Now, just imagine, if you can, you... playing WoW, or WAR, or some other crappy, boring, grinding, same-old, same-old game, because you won't pony up another 50 cents a day to play the single most amazing game ever created.
The only reason that makes sense to any sane person, that you wouldn't pay more than 15 bucks a month, even for a game that is much higher quality than all the typical $15/month games, is that you really cannot afford to pay it. If you refuse for any other reason... there is no helping you.
SOE tried this for EQ and it failed.
Curently AoC,Aion and Mortal online "seem" to be going in another direction,let's see if it's a right direction and not one that will lead them straight off a cliff.
Yes I would most likely do it. However it also depends on how the mods would measure immaturity and what's accepted and not. A "big brother's watching you" system where everyone is afraid of saying something that's not entirely political correct is not what I would pay more for. It would require extreme amounts of balancing and consideration to determine which comments should accepted and which ones shouldn't.
The way subs work is the more players they have the cheaper it is per player to host the game. So if a game has higher quality you would "assume" that it has more players. So it would already make more money than the other games. No big budget mmo should need more than 15 a month.
Theres no way id pay 25 a month for a game.....I already hate the fact that mmos require so much time you can only play one at a time. I would pay 25 for a station pass type thing though.
If you are looking to stop playing mmo's with kids.....try playing non kiddie friendly mmos.(not wow)
Own, Mine, Defend, Attack, 24/7
They designed a standard game, then tried to add something more to that, and it failed. They didn't design a higher quality game to begin with. I'd venture to say that there is a substantial difference.
I might be willing to pay more, but probably what would happen in the situation you describe is the guys in the business suits would make a half assed attempt to make good on their promises while pocketing the majority of that money for themselves.
Quality does not always equate to how much you pay for something. For example, my LOTRO account costs $10 per month. SWG, Vanguard, Matrix Online all cost $20 per month each. So if the SOE games are getting more money, they should be offering a better service...but they aren't.
I think MMOs charge enough as it is for gamers to suspect quality from them. Take World of Warcraft for instance, it charges you 8 pounds a month, and 30 pounds for the box, as well as around 20 pounds for expansion, on top of that they get money from all of the micro transaction services they offer ( character transfers for instance).
A lot of mmos charge the same way now. Blizzard get according to the last report I read from them 1 billion dollars just from WoW subscriptions and box sales, as well as those services offered. A lot of mmo companies make more than enough money for you to expect a quality product in my opinion without them having to result to charging you extra on the grounds of providing a quality product.
I voted No, not because I'm against a higher price, but that the price quote, imo, is too high. Unless, we're talking about a niche game with lots of other goodies like lots of GM events and the like, I would be hesitant to pay more. Before any price is set you have to make a general estimate of what is the likely size of your market and how much you'll be keeping over the lifetime of the product, from that you can make some good high, low, and average pricing schemes. Plus, being locked in at one price often prevents flexibility on your part, sometimes offering more payment levels can produce more revenue to pay the bills (and the paychecks). Flat fees are 'okay', but I'm wary of them even from a business perspective, when talking about 'E-commerce.'
-- Brede
the way i look at it is this, if you have fun acting like a retard on a computer game all day you go right ahead. as for me i will get my moneys worth and play the game and have fun with it. because all those people are doing is just wasting their pathetic life in front of a screen.
I vote nay since it wouldn't be the players determining that it's a quality product it would be the game company.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
It's an illusion to think that if you pay more you will get more. You won't. You'll simply pay more for what you receive today. Don't give them an excuse to raise prices.
You are all making very good points. I agree with a number of you that a game's depth can help to manage the maturity of it's core community.
I also want to remind you all that this is a theoretical situation and the situation I provided in the OP is that you've come across an MMORPG that does provide these extra services.
However, as I said, you're all making excellent points and I'd love to continue seeing this discussion develop. Maybe it would be appropriate to discuss what features within a game you would all be willing to pay more to see? For example, GM supported player-run events cost you an extra 30c per day to help pay GM wages and ensure quality GMs.
What say you? Keep in mind it's only an example; feel free to expand this with your own examples. Is it good, or is it bad?
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The Guild.
I look at it a different way. I won't pay for a game that doesn't have those elements at all. If I can't get roleplaying on a deeper level than the OP mentioned, I have no interest in playing whatsoever. Therefore, it isn't a matter of paying more for decent RPing, it's not paying a penny for crappy RPing in the first place.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
I'd pay as much as needed (within reason) if I was certain that the game developers kept their promise. That means they would have to actively maintain the community and arrange in-game events among other things.
If I was satisfied and convinced that it would last, I'd definitively pay more than $15 for this MMORPG, unless I couldn't afford it.
And players decide game quality now?
If that's the case, how come there are so many terrible MMOs out?
i'd pay a max of $50 a month for an online game i guess, if it was REALLY good
My god has horns.... nah, I don't think he is real either.
What is encouraging, is that people are starting to not pay for non-quality.
NGE-SWG, Vanguard, Pirates of the BS, all of these non-successes are starting to suggest that players will not pay for crap (or no longer pay for crap), or not pay for crap very long...
This is the market at work....