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Everquest 2 going free to play .Could Vanguard and StarWars Galaxies follow ?
OkhamsRazor
Member Posts: 1,047
in Everquest II
With Everquest 2 going free to play soon . If successful could the likes of Vanguard and StarWars Galaxies follow suit in the coming year ?
Comments
I personally would say that it is doubtful for either. Of course I am frequently wrong.....about everything. Just ask my girlfriend. In any case neither really have an existing cash shop and would need one to take full advantage of the F2P model. Of course this is just my opinion and SOE has been known to do some crazy shit.
Well eq 2 is only producing a server that will be free to play.. The Main ones will still be subscription based.. Personally I think eq 2 extended will be a massive fail.
CsM III
Neither SWG or Vanguard have a large enough team to make the amount of changes required for a change of this size. So I highly doubt it.
If SOE really wanted to experiment (their word not mine), they should have done it in vanguard first. They just closed servers, so they have the hardware sitting around and it isn't like the game isn't already on its death bed. I'm sure most of the current players would have loved any effort soe put forth to revitalize the game.
I feel that more and more mmorpgs will go this route. Especially when most companies offer a wide selection of mmos under their banner. That being said I also feel like we will see more and more mmos being sold off when the development phase is complete. And developers will make a bulk of their money from coming up with an initial mmo and any expansions a mmo hosting company would want. I feel this way because long ago getting the hardware to run and maintain a mmo was very expensive. Partly due to the new technology cost and partly due to trying to recoup those expenses.
This lead to a subscription base model that could not sustain itself as more and more competition/mmos was introduced to the genre. It's like when cable was first introduced. You only had HBO and Showtime. As cable caught on and more people begin to watch TV, the number of channels grew astronomically. This lead to different viewers wanted different experiences. Then Showtime introduced The Movie Channel and HBO answered with Cinemax. And before long there were several premium channels and the sub channels they spawned. All of them offer a package that you can pick and many sub channels to choose from to make up that package. And it's all because it's now cheaper to deliver that experience.
So don't be too surprised to see it happening here with mmos. In the past it was a crutch to keep a settled mmo (some would say dying) around for players that still enjoy it. It was more cost effective to just shut it down. Especially if you're continuously introducing sequels and new IPs for players who crave something new. But to expect old and new players to continue paying for ALL your games at full price (even when it's now cheaper for the tech) is not practical. Hence the reason you're more likely to see a company with multiple mmos retire a older mmo to the F2P model while introducing/developing new ones.
But since F2P models in the west are new in itself, you have to be prepared to deal with budding ideas for pay schemes when they do go this route.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
@Ramonski
Thought provoking comments. I like the able TV analogy. I am thinking that perhaps you are correct on this one. It will be an interesting trip down the MMO road, especially after SWTOR, TSW, GW2 come out next year. I wonder if we will see a cetneral clearing house of MMOs where a person can buy into an MMO service which will proveide access to most MMOS with a few premium ones that you will have to pay extra for to get that access.
Gaming since Avalon Hill was making board games.
Played SWG, EVE, Fallen Earth, LOTRO, Rift, Vanguard, WoW, SWTOR, TSW, Tera
Tried Aoc, Aion, EQII, RoM, Vindictus, Darkfail, DDO, GW, PotBS
This ^^^
I'll never understand SOE...Ever...
And I'm guessing Station Pass is still $30 per Month...
They just don't get it...
They did it with EQ2 first because EQ2 already has a store, its very little work to make up a new server and flag items as either live or extended.
Vanguard though would require an entire shop to be built for it from scratch, though I do think Vanguard would be the best platform for it, the game would be infinitely more popular as free to play.
Vanguard already has a store in it. It is limited to player to player transactions, but it is there.
Livegamer is nothing like the Marketplace, EQ2 has both and they are very different pieces of technology and serve very different functions.
Fair enough. I still think there is enough there to build on, but you are right about them being different.
I still disgree that this was done to EQ2 first, because it already has a store. I think it was done, because EQ2 in the only game running that still has enough developers to make it happen.
SOE needs to keep some MMOs subscription based to keep station pass viable for customers. If both SWG and Vanguard go F2P, station pass will even be less attractive.
Funnily enough a few weeks ago I posted in a Massively forum about SOE saying they would never go down the free to pay route where I argued it would be a good idea for them to do so . Another poster said exactly the same thing that it would never happen because of the station pass . I really don't think that will matter to them much if the free to play model proves more lucrative .
Personally I would like to see Vanguard given a chance . I only played it a month but it seamed an ok game . Who knows what will be next going down the free to play route .
From a business view, Vanguard would be the perfect game to have been made Free to play followed by SWG.
EQII should have been the third option but leave it to SoE to do things backwards.
I played Vanguard a while back and it has to be one of the most underated games of the decade.
Under rated yes, but also under developed and under supported. SOE did it for EQ2 because EQ2 is their highest populated subscription game, it would make them the most money going this route with EQ2. The next game they're most likely going to have some sort of f2p model is EQ1, because it's their second up in subscription population. Although I have a feeling SOE isn't going to spend the time, resources, and money (marketing, advertising) to do this for any other games except for maybe the upcoming ones.
SOE has been very stingy with spending any staff resources and money on any of the existing games other than EQ2 and Free Realms. They got a couple new games coming up, so I have high doubts they'll do f2p for games like Vanguard, SWG, or EQ1.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
Is that even possible at this point?
$30 bucks a Month for...basically...4 Games (EQ, EQII, Vanguard, and SWG) that have most definitely seen their better days...I know there's more to it than those 4, but nothing worth $30 per Month anymore IMHO...I had a Station Pass Sub for a couple Years...At one point when it was $25 and Folks were playing those Games more I'd say it was a decent deal...But not anymore...Based on the Marketplace, and how far Games have come to this point, they should all be F2P...Except maybe EQII...
EQ2 players at least tell people that the servers have a decent population.
Vanguard is dead for all intents and purposes.
Free or not, MMORPG players are not attracted to dead games. Vanguard also had a rather terrible reputation.
On top of that Vanguard System requirements are higher than EQ2, and that is a factor. People are not always willing to upgrade their machines to play games like AoC and Vanguard on decent settings. If you have to play a game on low settings all the time, the gameplay is nerfed and itsuddenly doesn't seem as epic as everyone made it out to be.
Computer hardware is cheap - yes - but when World of Warcraft plays just fine on teh machine you have right now, and EQ2/VG/AoC/etc. don't... The choices become a bit easier to make for many.
In any case, Vanguard is a terrible candidate for doing this, because the game simply isn't interesting to most players because of its history, its system requirements, and the fact that it's pretty much dead.
Don't forget PotBS.
Until you cancel your subscription, you are only helping to continue the cycle of mediocrity.
SW: G will drop dead once SW: TOR launches but EQ could possibly live on as F2P.
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
umm... DDO??
Remember Old School Ultima Online