Why would you want to pay a sub, when their customer service, updates, and holiday events were better than most games I paid monthly subs for? Their customer service seriously rocks! I mean they put me through to a tech and talked me through step by step how to get the game running after the program was corrupted on my old computer.. does the game you are currently playing and paying subs for do that? What exactly are you paying for when you can get all of that and more without a monthly sub?.. Oh yea not only did they not charge a monthly fee, they gave real cash prizes at their tourneys! WOW , actually a company that puts players first, and gives you MORE than you pay for.. who would have thunk it? LOL
This whole conversation is crazy. Making a game P2P does NOT mean that it is better or you will see more content. The original guild wars has sold 5 or 6 million boxed copies in its duration. That is enough to be considered a success and very well could be (might be wrong on this one) second only to WoW. While it is true that they have been releasing fewer content updates and patches as of late it does not mean they have done so because they are not charging their player base. Take a look at alot of the MMOs that have been released since GWs that have had monthly fees.
Warhammer, Aoc, anything by SoE, and tabula rasa. Very few people considered these titles to be success stories and many were disappointed by these P2P model games. Some of them, may they R.I.P. charged the obligitory $15 a month and did not manage to provide their players with as many content updates that GWs did in their prime. The sad truth is that some MMOs simply run their course no matter how much a selection of the player base love the game. This might bring up a whole new conversation on if in fact GW1 will live or die by the release of GW2 but thats not the point.
F2P or P2P does not matter. What matters is that the game that you have is fun and enjoyable, that you feel you got your moneys worth, and that the developers care to keep it that way. I may have bought all of the GW1 box editions for somewhere in the in the area of $100 all combined and i dont regret it at all. For that i could have bought 2 offline RPG games or so had a great time but been done in a couple hundred hours. If GW1 was to never release another content update i would say that i still got a couple thousand hours play time out of them and will never regret a moment of it. Well beyond the play time i got out of some MMOs that i pay up to $50 a pop for only to play them for 2 or so weeks and realize i dont enjoy them.
I'm kind of for both. I wouldn't mind paying a few bucks ( anything over $10 woul be unnecessary imo) so the devs can make a little bettercontent. HoweverI do agree with the others that wen u hav a P2P game, the devs try and make u stay and pay as long as possible. That means more grindage.
If Anet did that then Guild Wars 2 would become a Nitch game.
Because people that are into Lvling and Character development, wont say too long in the Developers plan for this sequel. Being F2P and 3D has been its top seller, not it's gameplay, IMHO
I don't think most of the current MMOs out there really deserve to charge any fees at all, especially with all the great single player and free multiplayer out there. There are a few that do provide a service that is actually worth a monthly fee, but I can only name about 2 or 3. And out of the soon to be released games, I don't see any really worth more than $5 a month.
What are we really paying for here? Is it just server rent and maintainance? Data storage? I don't see devs doing much besides creating new content. That is not really a service in my opinion. They don't interact with us or anything near what I would consider a service. Are we paying for the privelage to participate in something that should be free in the first place?
I suppose if GW2 came out and it was good enough, I would pay premium. But it would have to be VERY good compared to everything else that is out there already. As much as I hope a MMORPG game can do that, I have my doubts.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
This is already a P2P game. Just not in the traditional sense.
F2P games like Runes of Magic/Perfect World International give you all the content to experience, with the slight hitch that you will be severely gimped unless you use their cash shop.
GW2 on the other hand will only give you the content you paid for.
The problem /w GW1, and may be a problem for GW2 is that once content has been released, there is very little incentive for the dev. team to go back and fix some of the severely broken content since the vast majority of sales has been achieved in the first several months. (To ANet/Live Team's credit they've been slowly overhauling the worst of the game for the past year or so.)
ANet has said that there were flaws in the original release plan, and are hoping to have a better system in place for GW2, but ideally, P2P Sub. format games shouldn't necessarily be providing game balance updates any more frequently than ANet's system.
I was in the beta for the original Guild Wars, and it was a test then, find bugs, exploits and the llike. Not a free trial.... Anyway, I didn't like it then and when it went live I didn't play until a guy that worked for me at our previous job talked me into getting the game. I did it and know what? I STILL hated the game. was not my cup of tea.
I will still check out GW2 though as I think all games that are in the genre should at the very LEAST be checked out and such.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
Look, the whole concept of a P2P game works well and games like WoW have proven this. However ANET has stated from the initial stages of dev that they intend on creating a game that relies on a sub-free economic design. Kudos to them, they pulled it off amazingly with the first series and heres to them doing it again. I think that if they attempted to bring in something like a P2P subscription fee the fanbois and established fanbase would run riot, kill the dev teams children, burning down their houses and go play another great F2P online game like…erm….well theres….umm…Neopets online?
you people are freaking zombies with this whole BS about how p2p means it is good ... i left warhammer online for a reason , they never updated the things i wanted along side with thousands others who also wait for much needed patchs and that is a p2p game, then i find out about a game like rom and never went back warhammer, you know why ?????
cause the idea of paying something that you play is just plain stupid if the content is not there , and most likely case im sure a lot of people will agree with me because you have been in a similar circumstance.
if they make this game a p2p , i wont be playing it, but knowing you zombies are not getting your wish , makes me happy that i will be playing this game after all and enjoying it much like i still enjoy guild wars 1 .....
why is it that you people seem to think that paying to play a game is such a good idea ????? most games content is hardly there but paying a mothly fee would not ensure that the cost of mainting a server and update pluss patchs and extras would well enough cover more then it would for decades with in the first few months. but that is only meant is the value of the product is on par with the pay that is being presented and this is where most companies dont follow through. instead they keep taking and taking and never bringing out anything that could appeal to the consumer cause they have mindless sheeple zombies like you to keep paying for something that they wont see the light of day to bring forth their value of their dollar back to them.
not to make up for the cost of maintaining a server as long as revenu is up from the game being bought at the store and cash shops ....... in other words , the amount of money going in to maintain a server is only less then 100 dollars a
month , while a company who is greeedy will gladly take your money and not give anything back in return. i say that is just plain retarded
i've playing a lot of mmos
eq ,eq2,daoc,wow, war, eqoa, and there is a reason why i quit all of thoese games,
the cost of playing is not worth the money .
you zombies are wrong, im glad this game will be a f2p and not p2p.
yeah, how is vanguard or matrix online or daoc , or eq or even eqoa still holding up with their customers ? i bet you will find more people playing runes of magic then you will in matrix online or eq or vanguard or daoc any day of the week.
to get a good idea look at the player made mods created for games. like half life and such.
paid game.. free mod... either has more content then the other in all honest.
a p2p company has just as much drive to fix bugs/exploits and add content as a f2p company.
the whole argument is flawed when you assume that p2p games have more content then a f2p game.
neither has more content then the other, as content is added via patches and updates. severe game altering updates are added in expantions which is why an EP is a huge file and not a few KB-MB.
GW1 and 2 will have just as much content as a fully loaded WoW or WAR client. both will have the same quality of support staff as well. arguing this is pointless.
WoW was built for grinding to keep you paying, if you got lv 1000 in 1 solid 24hr playing whats the point paying money??
GW gives you casual play so lower grind, as it was claimed to be a heavier pvp game... reach end game play pvp do story mode more times to get more unlocked skills ect.
both games are equal on content. but each has their content laid out diffrently so it SEEMS like one has more when it doesnt.
the only bonus p2p has over f2p is less gold spamers as they cant create new accounts every day when old ones are banned. paying for new accounts cut in to profit.
but f2p beat p2p in terms of players/parties. its generally a little bit more easier to find players to party in a f2p game then p2p. granted p2p has equal enough oppertunity to get parties going.
its just seems easier to find people to party with on the fly in a f2p over p2p (less hardcore grinding parties in f2p..)
p2p vs f2p has nothing to do with content. to get a good idea look at the player made mods created for games. like half life and such. paid game.. free mod... either has more content then the other in all honest. a p2p company has just as much drive to fix bugs/exploits and add content as a f2p company. the whole argument is flawed when you assume that p2p games have more content then a f2p game. neither has more content then the other, as content is added via patches and updates. severe game altering updates are added in expantions which is why an EP is a huge file and not a few KB-MB. GW1 and 2 will have just as much content as a fully loaded WoW or WAR client. both will have the same quality of support staff as well. arguing this is pointless. WoW was built for grinding to keep you paying, if you got lv 1000 in 1 solid 24hr playing whats the point paying money?? GW gives you casual play so lower grind, as it was claimed to be a heavier pvp game... reach end game play pvp do story mode more times to get more unlocked skills ect.
both games are equal on content. but each has their content laid out diffrently so it SEEMS like one has more when it doesnt. the only bonus p2p has over f2p is less gold spamers as they cant create new accounts every day when old ones are banned. paying for new accounts cut in to profit. but f2p beat p2p in terms of players/parties. its generally a little bit more easier to find players to party in a f2p game then p2p. granted p2p has equal enough oppertunity to get parties going. its just seems easier to find people to party with on the fly in a f2p over p2p (less hardcore grinding parties in f2p..)
you made a mistake about how p2p games have an advantage over f2p and that gold farmers or in less number then thy are in f2p,,
this might be true to legit f2p point and click mmos, but not in all cases ,
swg is a good example of proving you wrong also guild wars , about a year ago they had a come back to swg f2p moment for only a few days , well , i tried swg and low and behold in tatoine, spam after spam about some website selling wow gold to you ........ but if i were to log on to guild wars, i might see it but it would be extra rare !!!!
and what is SoE doing to stop the gold spammer in swg ??? not a thing .....and people pay to play that crap , lol
There won´t be monthly fees. They strictly said that from the beginning and it´s good that way. GW is the best MMO out there, even without fees. And much success is sure because of f2p. I think Tabula Rasa would´ve been successfull too without monthly fees. So you guys wait and see how good the content support is. I don´t see any problems. And luckily Arenanet sure won´t change their minds.
Playing: Guild Wars, Runes of Magic Waiting: Guild Wars 2
I don't see this working. As a company, they have always wanted to do it the F2P way. They would make a huge profit, but lose a LARGE group of player base whom don't want to pay.
Even without the monthly fee, they were still able to add content until they started working on Guild Wars 2. I don't think any other online game, be it F2P or P2P has received more balance updates than GW2. Let's face it, that game had the best balance ever, even though it was far from perfect.
The initial Anet staff were from Blizzard and yes they did work on WoW.
In response to the topic, I'd much rather it stayed true to its roots and stayed f2p, you guys are forgetting the fact we still have to buy expansions, therefore its still p2p in a sense and they'll still make a ton of money. Of course the in-game store may be slightly larger, which isn't great but we'll live.
Oh and there were in-game GM's its just most of them have other accounts which don't have any indicators as to them being GM's.
Waiting for Guild Wars 2, SW:ToR and STO. Currently playing Guild Wars, LoTRO). Played WoW, GW, CO, DDO, RoM, WAR, LoTRO, Allods (Beta) + Tons more that aren't even worth mentioning!
The initial anet staff did not work on wow. There would have been a very nasty do-not-compete clause in their contract if they left blizz while WoW was still being developed.
Two groups of developers split from Blizzard, one was Flagship Studios, the other was ANet. Don't remember the exact timing, but it was during a period where blizzards owner was looking to sell the company and there weren't many willing buyers. There was some financial insecurity during that point, so two groups of the Diablo II development team split off.
While the ANet ppl did work on Diablo II, they were long gone before work on WoW started.
I apologize if this has already been brought up (I've read most of the posts though).
The reason Anet was founded, well at least why several blizzard employees left blizzard, was because the devs who left the company wanted WoW to be free to play. Several sites have reported this and there a quotes that support this such as comments made by Rob Pardo. Many many moons ago, blizzard wanted to charge for battle net. Lets be honest guys, does anyone here really believe blizzard would have ever been as big of a success if that had happened?
WoW cashed out on the blizzard name and reputation, and from a purely monetary point of view, they've done a great job with that game.
Some of you have been drinking the Koolaid. P2P has nothing to do with quality. How many games that are p2p have failed horribly? Yes WoW was incredibly successful, and many people attest that to the fact that the core game was great. On the other hand I've heard many times that (in the short run) patches/updates and expansions have completely sucked. I don't have first hand knowledge of exactly why some of the updates have been considered fairly bad. What this does tell me is that the original devs who helped create WoW are a major reason that WoW is successful. The following is a snide remark so feel free to ignore it: Where are those devs working now?
Guildwars had solid gameplay even during the beta. Yeah there was imbalances, bugs, not a whole lot of content. On the flip side, I was playing a game that was FUN. I didn't have to grind up to level 100 bazillion and get uber l00t of + Pi. Guildwars has been updated, in some way, on average several times a week since it was released. If anyone thinks complaining about devs not being involved is valid, I highly doubt they've had much hands on with the game.
To sum things up I'd like to a few points. First off the biggest excuse for a monthly fee, is server costs. Calling it an excuse might be slightly unfair, but honestly that is what it seems like to me. Secondly is the costs of supporting a dev team. Really? That 50$ I just handed you didn't cover that? To get around this first problem anet has used some very impressive (imho) networking coding to avoid having to use large amounts of bandwith. While there is no single sentence answer to explain why they don't need a monthly fee to support a dev team, I'll simply argue that their track record proves that they know what they are doing.
Guildwars 1: I thought it was great, and it clearly proved pay to play as a necessity is a lie.
The initial anet staff did not work on wow. There would have been a very nasty do-not-compete clause in their contract if they left blizz while WoW was still being developed.
Jeff Strain is a game programmer and one of the three founders of ArenaNet. He served ArenaNet and NCsoft as the leader of the Art and Production teams and President of Product Development respectively. He was previously the lead programmer of Blizzard's MMORPG World of Warcraft.
Um in other words WRONG
Edit: Oh and a side note. "f2p" as you guys like to call it makes sense. The p2p market is pretty full atm.
Yes they were from Blizzard. If you took two seconds to look it up online you would see.
back on topic....
I actually kind of agree. I would be more than happy to pay for a great game like Guild Wars... especially if it meant more content and stuff like that. Another reason, which may sound weird, is that a P2P model will filter out those that don't take the game that seriously and a bunch of a kids who's parents wouldn't normally pay... I know that's not a good thing from ArenaNets standpoint, but it is from mine.
Of course all that being said, I'm happy with how Guild Wars did with it's F2P model overall.. so Guild Wars 2 should be no different.
The initial anet staff did not work on wow. There would have been a very nasty do-not-compete clause in their contract if they left blizz while WoW was still being developed.
Jeff Strain is a game programmer and one of the three founders of ArenaNet. He served ArenaNet and NCsoft as the leader of the Art and Production teams and President of Product Development respectively. He was previously the lead programmer of Blizzard's MMORPG World of Warcraft.
Um in other words WRONG
Edit: Oh and a side note. "f2p" as you guys like to call it makes sense. The p2p market is pretty full atm.
Um... please give me a source of what he's credited with from something other than wikipedia, there's a reason they're thinking of instituting a peer review board before submitting biographies. And try using smaller fonts. It hurts the eyes.
Jeff strain founded ANet in the March of 2000, WoW was first announced by Blizzard in September 2001. He DID work as a programmer in Warcraft III, but since that didn't ship until 2k2 he must have pulled out of the WIII project long before completion.
Now, I don't know how the Blizzard ppl operate, but most game development houses don't have lead programmers working on two projects at once.
Originally posted by SaintViktor If the Guild Wars franchise would go p2p there would be a mutiny. Though it looks like they will be raising money with book sales and I am sure they will keep on adding to the Guild Wars store. I'm 100% positive Arenanet will give us great bang for our buck and another quality game. Nothing to worry about!
I agree that people would be quite upset. I do, however, think I would almost prefer a P2P system. That keeps out some people I would not want to play with, for starters, and it would give Arenanet more money than even their online store for in-game items would provide. I know many people like this theme for Arenanet, and it is good to prove that you do not need to be super greedy to make profitable games. That is why these people left Blizzard in the first place. That is why there is the 50 gold purchase of a Xunlai chest at the beginning of a new characters. It is a sticking point with them. It is thematically crucial to them. And they still turn a profit.
I would like to see them get more money, but they would never do this for moral reasons, and I support this morality. They will certainly have an online store, and I will buy unlock packs and extra character slots and anything else they want to provide, because I want to give them my money. I want them to succeed. And I am certain they will, because they are clever and dedicated to gaming.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Google ftw noob. Even the mmorpg post of this new article cites him as lead programmer. Enough sources
On that note, gamedaly uses industrygamers as it's own source, meaning any poorly checked/wikipediad article from industrysource would very like end up in the gamedaily press release. Hell, the press release was even word for word identical.
Next, look a bit more closely at the mobygames bio - *gasp!* no WoW listing!
Now. I'm done with you, you're a troll and an idiot. Good day.
EDIT:
Finally something to concede.
The "unannouced project" part did seem relevant. The only problem is that it was an unannouced project in pre-production. There would be no actual code or gameplay to make an annoucement on for another year. He was never officialy credited /w WoW because there wasn't much to code at the time of departure.
There did appear to be some ideas that they took with them. But mostly they were things on the basic engine level, such as being able to ping and draw on the minimap.
There you have it. A single individual in the group of ppl that left had something to do /w WoW at the time of the exodus. Sleep easy.
I'm not going to be upping my post count over this idocy. The argument is over HOW MUCH, if anything, the ANet team got from WoW development. I could give a sh*t over who was there at the time WoW was being developed. The point is they left during pre-production. The story bible would not have been complete, the game mechanics would not be fleshed out, all they'd have was a concept of a minimap that you could ping and doodle on, as well as several data transfer and login algorithms.
That kind of stuff could have been developed on it's own in short order, but it wouldn't really make or break the storyline or any of the gameplay aspects that gamers consider to be important.
The argument was first off whether or not any of the founders of anet where at blizzard when WoW was being made. Clearly this has already been proven, and YOU would be the idiot for try to argue that considering the amount of evidence that supports that being true. Secondly the argument has become whether or not any work was done on WoW specifically by Jeff Strain. There are many news posts articles and quotes that support that. Obviously he isn't credited with being the lead programmer because he wasn't at the time of release. This is incredibly common in the gaming industry, and someone with your far superior amount of knowledge I would think would know this. Honestly stfu stop being a dick and trying to pull the whole "oh i'll just derail threads cause I like wasting peoples time".
Comments
Why would you want to pay a sub, when their customer service, updates, and holiday events were better than most games I paid monthly subs for? Their customer service seriously rocks! I mean they put me through to a tech and talked me through step by step how to get the game running after the program was corrupted on my old computer.. does the game you are currently playing and paying subs for do that? What exactly are you paying for when you can get all of that and more without a monthly sub?.. Oh yea not only did they not charge a monthly fee, they gave real cash prizes at their tourneys! WOW , actually a company that puts players first, and gives you MORE than you pay for.. who would have thunk it? LOL
This whole conversation is crazy. Making a game P2P does NOT mean that it is better or you will see more content. The original guild wars has sold 5 or 6 million boxed copies in its duration. That is enough to be considered a success and very well could be (might be wrong on this one) second only to WoW. While it is true that they have been releasing fewer content updates and patches as of late it does not mean they have done so because they are not charging their player base. Take a look at alot of the MMOs that have been released since GWs that have had monthly fees.
Warhammer, Aoc, anything by SoE, and tabula rasa. Very few people considered these titles to be success stories and many were disappointed by these P2P model games. Some of them, may they R.I.P. charged the obligitory $15 a month and did not manage to provide their players with as many content updates that GWs did in their prime. The sad truth is that some MMOs simply run their course no matter how much a selection of the player base love the game. This might bring up a whole new conversation on if in fact GW1 will live or die by the release of GW2 but thats not the point.
F2P or P2P does not matter. What matters is that the game that you have is fun and enjoyable, that you feel you got your moneys worth, and that the developers care to keep it that way. I may have bought all of the GW1 box editions for somewhere in the in the area of $100 all combined and i dont regret it at all. For that i could have bought 2 offline RPG games or so had a great time but been done in a couple hundred hours. If GW1 was to never release another content update i would say that i still got a couple thousand hours play time out of them and will never regret a moment of it. Well beyond the play time i got out of some MMOs that i pay up to $50 a pop for only to play them for 2 or so weeks and realize i dont enjoy them.
~If you run, you'll only die tired~
I'm kind of for both. I wouldn't mind paying a few bucks ( anything over $10 woul be unnecessary imo) so the devs can make a little bettercontent. HoweverI do agree with the others that wen u hav a P2P game, the devs try and make u stay and pay as long as possible. That means more grindage.
±MeDiC±
If Anet did that then Guild Wars 2 would become a Nitch game.
Because people that are into Lvling and Character development, wont say too long in the Developers plan for this sequel. Being F2P and 3D has been its top seller, not it's gameplay, IMHO
Crazy!
I hope it remains F2P. hope hope hope x100
I don't think most of the current MMOs out there really deserve to charge any fees at all, especially with all the great single player and free multiplayer out there. There are a few that do provide a service that is actually worth a monthly fee, but I can only name about 2 or 3. And out of the soon to be released games, I don't see any really worth more than $5 a month.
What are we really paying for here? Is it just server rent and maintainance? Data storage? I don't see devs doing much besides creating new content. That is not really a service in my opinion. They don't interact with us or anything near what I would consider a service. Are we paying for the privelage to participate in something that should be free in the first place?
I suppose if GW2 came out and it was good enough, I would pay premium. But it would have to be VERY good compared to everything else that is out there already. As much as I hope a MMORPG game can do that, I have my doubts.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
This is already a P2P game. Just not in the traditional sense.
F2P games like Runes of Magic/Perfect World International give you all the content to experience, with the slight hitch that you will be severely gimped unless you use their cash shop.
GW2 on the other hand will only give you the content you paid for.
The problem /w GW1, and may be a problem for GW2 is that once content has been released, there is very little incentive for the dev. team to go back and fix some of the severely broken content since the vast majority of sales has been achieved in the first several months. (To ANet/Live Team's credit they've been slowly overhauling the worst of the game for the past year or so.)
ANet has said that there were flaws in the original release plan, and are hoping to have a better system in place for GW2, but ideally, P2P Sub. format games shouldn't necessarily be providing game balance updates any more frequently than ANet's system.
I was in the beta for the original Guild Wars, and it was a test then, find bugs, exploits and the llike. Not a free trial.... Anyway, I didn't like it then and when it went live I didn't play until a guy that worked for me at our previous job talked me into getting the game. I did it and know what? I STILL hated the game. was not my cup of tea.
I will still check out GW2 though as I think all games that are in the genre should at the very LEAST be checked out and such.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
Look, the whole concept of a P2P game works well and games like WoW have proven this. However ANET has stated from the initial stages of dev that they intend on creating a game that relies on a sub-free economic design. Kudos to them, they pulled it off amazingly with the first series and heres to them doing it again. I think that if they attempted to bring in something like a P2P subscription fee the fanbois and established fanbase would run riot, kill the dev teams children, burning down their houses and go play another great F2P online game like…erm….well theres….umm…Neopets online?
you people are freaking zombies with this whole BS about how p2p means it is good ... i left warhammer online for a reason , they never updated the things i wanted along side with thousands others who also wait for much needed patchs and that is a p2p game, then i find out about a game like rom and never went back warhammer, you know why ?????
cause the idea of paying something that you play is just plain stupid if the content is not there , and most likely case im sure a lot of people will agree with me because you have been in a similar circumstance.
if they make this game a p2p , i wont be playing it, but knowing you zombies are not getting your wish , makes me happy that i will be playing this game after all and enjoying it much like i still enjoy guild wars 1 .....
why is it that you people seem to think that paying to play a game is such a good idea ????? most games content is hardly there but paying a mothly fee would not ensure that the cost of mainting a server and update pluss patchs and extras would well enough cover more then it would for decades with in the first few months. but that is only meant is the value of the product is on par with the pay that is being presented and this is where most companies dont follow through. instead they keep taking and taking and never bringing out anything that could appeal to the consumer cause they have mindless sheeple zombies like you to keep paying for something that they wont see the light of day to bring forth their value of their dollar back to them.
not to make up for the cost of maintaining a server as long as revenu is up from the game being bought at the store and cash shops ....... in other words , the amount of money going in to maintain a server is only less then 100 dollars a
month , while a company who is greeedy will gladly take your money and not give anything back in return. i say that is just plain retarded
i've playing a lot of mmos
eq ,eq2,daoc,wow, war, eqoa, and there is a reason why i quit all of thoese games,
the cost of playing is not worth the money .
you zombies are wrong, im glad this game will be a f2p and not p2p.
yeah, how is vanguard or matrix online or daoc , or eq or even eqoa still holding up with their customers ? i bet you will find more people playing runes of magic then you will in matrix online or eq or vanguard or daoc any day of the week.
p2p vs f2p has nothing to do with content.
to get a good idea look at the player made mods created for games. like half life and such.
paid game.. free mod... either has more content then the other in all honest.
a p2p company has just as much drive to fix bugs/exploits and add content as a f2p company.
the whole argument is flawed when you assume that p2p games have more content then a f2p game.
neither has more content then the other, as content is added via patches and updates. severe game altering updates are added in expantions which is why an EP is a huge file and not a few KB-MB.
GW1 and 2 will have just as much content as a fully loaded WoW or WAR client. both will have the same quality of support staff as well. arguing this is pointless.
WoW was built for grinding to keep you paying, if you got lv 1000 in 1 solid 24hr playing whats the point paying money??
GW gives you casual play so lower grind, as it was claimed to be a heavier pvp game... reach end game play pvp do story mode more times to get more unlocked skills ect.
both games are equal on content. but each has their content laid out diffrently so it SEEMS like one has more when it doesnt.
the only bonus p2p has over f2p is less gold spamers as they cant create new accounts every day when old ones are banned. paying for new accounts cut in to profit.
but f2p beat p2p in terms of players/parties. its generally a little bit more easier to find players to party in a f2p game then p2p. granted p2p has equal enough oppertunity to get parties going.
its just seems easier to find people to party with on the fly in a f2p over p2p (less hardcore grinding parties in f2p..)
you made a mistake about how p2p games have an advantage over f2p and that gold farmers or in less number then thy are in f2p,,
this might be true to legit f2p point and click mmos, but not in all cases ,
swg is a good example of proving you wrong also guild wars , about a year ago they had a come back to swg f2p moment for only a few days , well , i tried swg and low and behold in tatoine, spam after spam about some website selling wow gold to you ........ but if i were to log on to guild wars, i might see it but it would be extra rare !!!!
and what is SoE doing to stop the gold spammer in swg ??? not a thing .....and people pay to play that crap , lol
It will remain without monthly fees, it's in the Q&A.
GW1 was never slow on the patches, even now they have one monthly "minor" patch and one content patch every 3 months.
I hope their revenue comes from campaigns or expansions like in GW1, and keep pumping 2 of 'em per year.
There won´t be monthly fees. They strictly said that from the beginning and it´s good that way. GW is the best MMO out there, even without fees. And much success is sure because of f2p. I think Tabula Rasa would´ve been successfull too without monthly fees. So you guys wait and see how good the content support is. I don´t see any problems. And luckily Arenanet sure won´t change their minds.
Playing: Guild Wars, Runes of Magic
Waiting: Guild Wars 2
I don't see this working. As a company, they have always wanted to do it the F2P way. They would make a huge profit, but lose a LARGE group of player base whom don't want to pay.
Even without the monthly fee, they were still able to add content until they started working on Guild Wars 2. I don't think any other online game, be it F2P or P2P has received more balance updates than GW2. Let's face it, that game had the best balance ever, even though it was far from perfect.
The initial Anet staff were from Blizzard and yes they did work on WoW.
In response to the topic, I'd much rather it stayed true to its roots and stayed f2p, you guys are forgetting the fact we still have to buy expansions, therefore its still p2p in a sense and they'll still make a ton of money. Of course the in-game store may be slightly larger, which isn't great but we'll live.
Oh and there were in-game GM's its just most of them have other accounts which don't have any indicators as to them being GM's.
Waiting for Guild Wars 2, SW:ToR and STO.
Currently playing Guild Wars, LoTRO).
Played WoW, GW, CO, DDO, RoM, WAR, LoTRO, Allods (Beta) + Tons more that aren't even worth mentioning!
The initial anet staff did not work on wow. There would have been a very nasty do-not-compete clause in their contract if they left blizz while WoW was still being developed.
Two groups of developers split from Blizzard, one was Flagship Studios, the other was ANet. Don't remember the exact timing, but it was during a period where blizzards owner was looking to sell the company and there weren't many willing buyers. There was some financial insecurity during that point, so two groups of the Diablo II development team split off.
While the ANet ppl did work on Diablo II, they were long gone before work on WoW started.
I apologize if this has already been brought up (I've read most of the posts though).
The reason Anet was founded, well at least why several blizzard employees left blizzard, was because the devs who left the company wanted WoW to be free to play. Several sites have reported this and there a quotes that support this such as comments made by Rob Pardo. Many many moons ago, blizzard wanted to charge for battle net. Lets be honest guys, does anyone here really believe blizzard would have ever been as big of a success if that had happened?
WoW cashed out on the blizzard name and reputation, and from a purely monetary point of view, they've done a great job with that game.
Some of you have been drinking the Koolaid. P2P has nothing to do with quality. How many games that are p2p have failed horribly? Yes WoW was incredibly successful, and many people attest that to the fact that the core game was great. On the other hand I've heard many times that (in the short run) patches/updates and expansions have completely sucked. I don't have first hand knowledge of exactly why some of the updates have been considered fairly bad. What this does tell me is that the original devs who helped create WoW are a major reason that WoW is successful. The following is a snide remark so feel free to ignore it: Where are those devs working now?
Guildwars had solid gameplay even during the beta. Yeah there was imbalances, bugs, not a whole lot of content. On the flip side, I was playing a game that was FUN. I didn't have to grind up to level 100 bazillion and get uber l00t of + Pi. Guildwars has been updated, in some way, on average several times a week since it was released. If anyone thinks complaining about devs not being involved is valid, I highly doubt they've had much hands on with the game.
To sum things up I'd like to a few points. First off the biggest excuse for a monthly fee, is server costs. Calling it an excuse might be slightly unfair, but honestly that is what it seems like to me. Secondly is the costs of supporting a dev team. Really? That 50$ I just handed you didn't cover that? To get around this first problem anet has used some very impressive (imho) networking coding to avoid having to use large amounts of bandwith. While there is no single sentence answer to explain why they don't need a monthly fee to support a dev team, I'll simply argue that their track record proves that they know what they are doing.
Guildwars 1: I thought it was great, and it clearly proved pay to play as a necessity is a lie.
Guildwars 2: Hoping its even better.
Jeff Strain is a game programmer and one of the three founders of ArenaNet. He served ArenaNet and NCsoft as the leader of the Art and Production teams and President of Product Development respectively. He was previously the lead programmer of Blizzard's MMORPG World of Warcraft.
Um in other words WRONG
Edit: Oh and a side note. "f2p" as you guys like to call it makes sense. The p2p market is pretty full atm.
Yes they were from Blizzard. If you took two seconds to look it up online you would see.
back on topic....
I actually kind of agree. I would be more than happy to pay for a great game like Guild Wars... especially if it meant more content and stuff like that. Another reason, which may sound weird, is that a P2P model will filter out those that don't take the game that seriously and a bunch of a kids who's parents wouldn't normally pay... I know that's not a good thing from ArenaNets standpoint, but it is from mine.
Of course all that being said, I'm happy with how Guild Wars did with it's F2P model overall.. so Guild Wars 2 should be no different.
Jeff Strain is a game programmer and one of the three founders of ArenaNet. He served ArenaNet and NCsoft as the leader of the Art and Production teams and President of Product Development respectively. He was previously the lead programmer of Blizzard's MMORPG World of Warcraft.
Um in other words WRONG
Edit: Oh and a side note. "f2p" as you guys like to call it makes sense. The p2p market is pretty full atm.
Um... please give me a source of what he's credited with from something other than wikipedia, there's a reason they're thinking of instituting a peer review board before submitting biographies. And try using smaller fonts. It hurts the eyes.
Jeff strain founded ANet in the March of 2000, WoW was first announced by Blizzard in September 2001. He DID work as a programmer in Warcraft III, but since that didn't ship until 2k2 he must have pulled out of the WIII project long before completion.
Now, I don't know how the Blizzard ppl operate, but most game development houses don't have lead programmers working on two projects at once.
I agree that people would be quite upset. I do, however, think I would almost prefer a P2P system. That keeps out some people I would not want to play with, for starters, and it would give Arenanet more money than even their online store for in-game items would provide. I know many people like this theme for Arenanet, and it is good to prove that you do not need to be super greedy to make profitable games. That is why these people left Blizzard in the first place. That is why there is the 50 gold purchase of a Xunlai chest at the beginning of a new characters. It is a sticking point with them. It is thematically crucial to them. And they still turn a profit.
I would like to see them get more money, but they would never do this for moral reasons, and I support this morality. They will certainly have an online store, and I will buy unlock packs and extra character slots and anything else they want to provide, because I want to give them my money. I want them to succeed. And I am certain they will, because they are clever and dedicated to gaming.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
http://www.industrygamers.com/news/ncsoft-loses-jeff-strain-and-david-reid/
http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/ncsoft-loses-jeff-strain-and-david-reid/
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,9171/
Google ftw noob. Even the mmorpg post of this new article cites him as lead programmer. Enough sources?
edit: Another official news post, this one is from 2000 so its blizzards "unannounced project"
http://www.arena.net/press/triforge_games_will_be_new_venture_for_senior_blizzard_programmers
On that note, gamedaly uses industrygamers as it's own source, meaning any poorly checked/wikipediad article from industrysource would very like end up in the gamedaily press release. Hell, the press release was even word for word identical.
Next, look a bit more closely at the mobygames bio - *gasp!* no WoW listing!
Now. I'm done with you, you're a troll and an idiot. Good day.
EDIT:
Finally something to concede.
The "unannouced project" part did seem relevant. The only problem is that it was an unannouced project in pre-production. There would be no actual code or gameplay to make an annoucement on for another year. He was never officialy credited /w WoW because there wasn't much to code at the time of departure.
There did appear to be some ideas that they took with them. But mostly they were things on the basic engine level, such as being able to ping and draw on the minimap.
There you have it. A single individual in the group of ppl that left had something to do /w WoW at the time of the exodus. Sleep easy.
Edit @ your next post
I'm not going to be upping my post count over this idocy. The argument is over HOW MUCH, if anything, the ANet team got from WoW development. I could give a sh*t over who was there at the time WoW was being developed. The point is they left during pre-production. The story bible would not have been complete, the game mechanics would not be fleshed out, all they'd have was a concept of a minimap that you could ping and doodle on, as well as several data transfer and login algorithms.
That kind of stuff could have been developed on it's own in short order, but it wouldn't really make or break the storyline or any of the gameplay aspects that gamers consider to be important.
The argument was first off whether or not any of the founders of anet where at blizzard when WoW was being made. Clearly this has already been proven, and YOU would be the idiot for try to argue that considering the amount of evidence that supports that being true. Secondly the argument has become whether or not any work was done on WoW specifically by Jeff Strain. There are many news posts articles and quotes that support that. Obviously he isn't credited with being the lead programmer because he wasn't at the time of release. This is incredibly common in the gaming industry, and someone with your far superior amount of knowledge I would think would know this. Honestly stfu stop being a dick and trying to pull the whole "oh i'll just derail threads cause I like wasting peoples time".