Sure, WoW proved that you can have quality and polish for the usual price. However, what some of us are talking about is paying more for an MMO that has loads of features and plenty of GMs to run live events. This I would pay extra for. I wont pay $15 per month to play an MMO just because its polished
I think there are some assumptions and definitions in the original post that I would not agree with.
To start I don't agree that good community support or a good community of players defines a "high quality" game. It certainly makes a game of any quality more fun to play but it is not indicative of the quality of the game. A case in point was AC2 which had what was generally recognized as a great community, and at times in it's short life, it was felt to have good community support from Turbine (specifically, Ramen). However the game itself was far from "high quality". And while I cannot speak from personal experience, Horizons supposedly had a great and "mature" community while the game was of poor quality.
The price of the game will not dictate the quality or maturity of person who decides to play it. Although it is popular in this genre to blame immaturity on the young. My experience with people who's ages I've known indicate that immaturity thrives at all ages. This is true in games and in every aspect of life. Some of the worst people I have dealt with in life are those who are the smartest and best payed. It tends to give some people over-inflated egos when they have high skills and high recognition in life. They don't feel they have to be nice to anyone. Some likely play mmo's.
The quality of software is rarely related to the money available to the development team. It tends to be controlled more by the overall makeup of the team, the individual skills of the members and the capability of the managment team. Whether you pay $15.00/mo or $25/mo is likely to have little to no impact on the quality of the game you get for any given team. Throwing money at them won't make them better developers or cause them to have better ideas. It might buy a couple more customer support personel. But having a couple more people to ignore the important questions and to ban complainers makes the rabid fanboys happy but does nothing to improve quality.
To get the kind of situation the OP is wanting will require simply waiting until companies decide they can make more money by just licensing their server software to any individual who wants to set up a server and collecting additional fees based on the number of client licenses purchased. Then individuals can invite only those people they feel are "high quality" to play on their servers. That fixes the community issue.
However, the game quality won't get any better until people stop paying for what is being delivered now. People accept today's quality by paying and so there is no compelling reason to do a whole lot better. As long as the market is expanding, new players will continue to enter who have nothing to compare their current game to. They will be happy with what they have for at least a couple years. Only once they've become bored or jaded and start trying other games will they start asking for better quality. With all the potential new players out there, there is no reason to believe companies are going to change anytime soon on their own.
Hum... I don't think people understand my vision in all of this... However, this is just a theoretical situation and a simple inquiry. I appreciate all the opinions and discussion so far.
=========== The Guild is all about making MMORPGs more immersive, and more importantly, more fun! Join us! The Guild.
I would definately be willing to pay more, but not in the monthly cost. If more time was put into the initial game design to allow for some excellent sandbox play I would DEFINATELY be willing to pay more for the game initially (like $70 instead of the usual $50)... but not for the monthly subcription.
Any increase to the monthly fee will add up quickly, and that money should really be going to maintaince. For a sandbox game, the importance is on the initial design to allow for an open-ended, non-broken game where anything goes.
Comments
Sure, WoW proved that you can have quality and polish for the usual price. However, what some of us are talking about is paying more for an MMO that has loads of features and plenty of GMs to run live events. This I would pay extra for. I wont pay $15 per month to play an MMO just because its polished
I think there are some assumptions and definitions in the original post that I would not agree with.
To start I don't agree that good community support or a good community of players defines a "high quality" game. It certainly makes a game of any quality more fun to play but it is not indicative of the quality of the game. A case in point was AC2 which had what was generally recognized as a great community, and at times in it's short life, it was felt to have good community support from Turbine (specifically, Ramen). However the game itself was far from "high quality". And while I cannot speak from personal experience, Horizons supposedly had a great and "mature" community while the game was of poor quality.
The price of the game will not dictate the quality or maturity of person who decides to play it. Although it is popular in this genre to blame immaturity on the young. My experience with people who's ages I've known indicate that immaturity thrives at all ages. This is true in games and in every aspect of life. Some of the worst people I have dealt with in life are those who are the smartest and best payed. It tends to give some people over-inflated egos when they have high skills and high recognition in life. They don't feel they have to be nice to anyone. Some likely play mmo's.
The quality of software is rarely related to the money available to the development team. It tends to be controlled more by the overall makeup of the team, the individual skills of the members and the capability of the managment team. Whether you pay $15.00/mo or $25/mo is likely to have little to no impact on the quality of the game you get for any given team. Throwing money at them won't make them better developers or cause them to have better ideas. It might buy a couple more customer support personel. But having a couple more people to ignore the important questions and to ban complainers makes the rabid fanboys happy but does nothing to improve quality.
To get the kind of situation the OP is wanting will require simply waiting until companies decide they can make more money by just licensing their server software to any individual who wants to set up a server and collecting additional fees based on the number of client licenses purchased. Then individuals can invite only those people they feel are "high quality" to play on their servers. That fixes the community issue.
However, the game quality won't get any better until people stop paying for what is being delivered now. People accept today's quality by paying and so there is no compelling reason to do a whole lot better. As long as the market is expanding, new players will continue to enter who have nothing to compare their current game to. They will be happy with what they have for at least a couple years. Only once they've become bored or jaded and start trying other games will they start asking for better quality. With all the potential new players out there, there is no reason to believe companies are going to change anytime soon on their own.
Hum... I don't think people understand my vision in all of this... However, this is just a theoretical situation and a simple inquiry. I appreciate all the opinions and discussion so far.
===========
The Guild is all about making MMORPGs more immersive, and more importantly, more fun! Join us!
The Guild.
Given the specific choices, I voted no.
I would definately be willing to pay more, but not in the monthly cost. If more time was put into the initial game design to allow for some excellent sandbox play I would DEFINATELY be willing to pay more for the game initially (like $70 instead of the usual $50)... but not for the monthly subcription.
Any increase to the monthly fee will add up quickly, and that money should really be going to maintaince. For a sandbox game, the importance is on the initial design to allow for an open-ended, non-broken game where anything goes.