Anyone else hopes that after GW2 release more and more MMOs will be developed with B2P model so F2P and Subscription MMOs will die forever soon enough?
I hope so. It will be nice to pay only for bugless content you want to see instead of paying for ingame "unfixed-bugs-neutralizing-support" and for content you do not want (or can't access depending on time you spend in game and your playstile).
GW2 won't be killing WoW much less the subscription model.
It's fun to say things like "bugless content" when release is more than a year away.
It's fun to say things like "bugless content" when release is more than a year away.
ArenaNet and NCsoft are have to make GW2 as bugless and optimized as possible or they will not be able to keep GW2 as B2P game (becouse game's maintaining cost will be increased becouse of bugs and poor optimization). And this is living example of how B2P model affect game's quality assurance
It's fun to say things like "bugless content" when release is more than a year away.
ArenaNet and NCsoft are have to make GW2 as bugless and optimized as possible or they will not be able to keep GW2 as B2P game. And this living example of how BTP model affect game's quality assurance
Exactly, nice proof of that is GW 1 and its expansions. Expansions were getting better and better.
Played: Lineage 2,Guild Wars 1 and 2, Age of Conan, Ragnarok Online, LOTRO, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, EvE online Tried: KAL Online, Face of Mankind, ROSE online Playing: CS:GO
Firstly, servers cost money, to break even you needa min amound of box sales and likely a ad program that people cant avoid.
then theres the whole internet cost. more and more ISP and lagre bandwide (sp) Corperation are getting into word fights about the cost. keeping the net up cost money, the more the net is used the more it cost.
then theres power cost, your electric bills (and the servers) will go up each year. a gamer (he who player 3 hours or so) uses just as mutch energy as someone who drives to work in his car every day, the polution is about 50% of a car.
Using the internet, and specialy programs / games that use more bandwide then avarage browsing will get taxed. this needs to be paid for, either by you directly in form of a eco tax ontop of your isp bill, or by the corporation ( by incl or raising sub prizes)
Nothing is as simple as it seem,the world is a very complex thing.
The way i see it, I would have to say that the B2P model would have to be a lot more profitable then the P2P model is, companies like money. They like it when you buy their products. They like it even more when you buy the products then pay more for continued access. They like it even more if you do that and don't really play the game.
I think companies like continued money flow more then burst money flow. Granted Anet is attempting the burst kind, but they did this with GW1 and it didn't really change anything. Companies continue to do the P2P idea and some are F2P. Right now i only know of 1 company (I didn't do research on this, sorry) that does the B2P model and thats Anet. I'm kinda curious why that is?
Don't get me wrong, i'm all for B2P type model. Cheaper for all of us. But there has to be a reason Anet is the only one. If it was the wave of the future, why hasn't another company done this as well?
Now granted GW1 wasn't really an MMO (devs said so themselves) but it was dang close. Close enough to show there would be interest for this type from these types of players. Now I'm not sure what effect GW2 will have as they seem to be a true MMO this time around. But like i stated earlier they would have to show a pretty good margin of profit to show it's a safe venture.
Companies don't generally like the burst type model as it's not really self sustaining. They have to keep bringing out new products to keep the people interested and bring in more money. It can work but before other companies jump on they need to see it's a safe model and works well.
Which also means they will probably need to see a history of this working, and GW1 wasn't enough apparently as they haven't adopted it yet. I think it will be a little while before GW2 will have enough time under it's belt to show this type of payment option works better then P2P.
Note; the reason i say it has to work better is because this is generally a more risker way of doing things, so they generally need some pushing before they will try it out themselves..
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Firstly, servers cost money, to break even you needa min amound of box sales and likely a ad program that people cant avoid.
then theres the whole internet cost. more and more ISP and lagre bandwide (sp) Corperation are getting into word fights about the cost. keeping the net up cost money, the more the net is used the more it cost.
then theres power cost, your electric bills (and the servers) will go up each year. a gamer (he who player 3 hours or so) uses just as mutch energy as someone who drives to work in his car every day, the polution is about 50% of a car.
Using the internet, and specialy programs / games that use more bandwide then avarage browsing will get taxed. this needs to be paid for, either by you directly in form of a eco tax ontop of your isp bill, or by the corporation ( by incl or raising sub prizes)
Nothing is as simple as it seem,the world is a very complex thing.
GW1 survived and it is 5 years old game with more then 6 million copies sold. And now ArenaNet is making another B2P game. This is the proof that B2P model is strong enough.
Also as I told before, you can see good examples of B2P model among some offline games (Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age). MMO requires more income then an offline game to survive and that is why GW2 will have more paid content than Mass Effect 2 (for example) has.
Anyone else hopes that after GW2 release more and more MMOs will be developed with B2P model so F2P and Subscription MMOs will die forever soon enough?
I hope so. It will be nice to pay only for bugless content you want to see instead of paying for ingame "unfixed-bugs-neutralizing-support" and for content you do not want (or can't access depending on time you spend in game and your playstile).
I don't have this hope because the truth of the matter is I believe in choice, while B2P may work great for me in every instance I can think of I can think of quite logical reasons why companies and consumers would use F2P and subscription based models as well and don't see why those people should be held to the whims of a certain few individuals who seem to see the need to go to war with any concept they feel doesn't fit them very well.
To me choice should be the factor that drives these decisions if the industry wants to continue to grow they should offer up options and not stick to any of the models as an industry standard.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
I think companies like continued money flow more then burst money flow. Granted Anet is attempting the burst kind, but they did this with GW1 and it didn't really change anything. Companies continue to do the P2P idea and some are F2P. Right now i only know of 1 company (I didn't do research on this, sorry) that does the B2P model and thats Anet. I'm kinda curious why that is?
They were just first. Someone had to be first to make a good example.
The question is how soon other developers and publishers will understand that B2P is better then any other model
Firstly, servers cost money, to break even you needa min amound of box sales and likely a ad program that people cant avoid.
then theres the whole internet cost. more and more ISP and lagre bandwide (sp) Corperation are getting into word fights about the cost. keeping the net up cost money, the more the net is used the more it cost.
then theres power cost, your electric bills (and the servers) will go up each year. a gamer (he who player 3 hours or so) uses just as mutch energy as someone who drives to work in his car every day, the polution is about 50% of a car.
Using the internet, and specialy programs / games that use more bandwide then avarage browsing will get taxed. this needs to be paid for, either by you directly in form of a eco tax ontop of your isp bill, or by the corporation ( by incl or raising sub prizes)
Nothing is as simple as it seem,the world is a very complex thing.
GW1 survived and it is 5 years old game with more then 6 million copies sold. And now ArenaNet is making another B2P game. This is the proof that B2P model is strong enough.
Also as I told before, you can see good examples of B2P model among some offline games (Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age). MMO requires more income then an offline game to survive and that is why GW2 will have more paid content than Mass Effect 2 (for example) has.
Generally speaking aren't all offline games B2P?? I mean since the days of Atari that's what I've been doing buying the game to play it and of course we have always paid for sequals (didn't have the ability to expand console games back in the day) so I think I may just be missing your point.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Giving it some thought, I believe your onto something here. The only way a new game is gonna get the subscriber base of say ...WoW, will be with a really decent, actual interactive world, buy to play MMO. But it is gonna have to have actual depth and complexity and not be over the top hand holding- easy mode. Or at least include options for both interactive players and solo players.
Subscription MMOs are imo by far the best form of pay system you can get in the mmo games.
By saying this I dont think subscription mmo's should ever release any expantions and never have any kind of cash shop.
By paying subscription fee your game should be updatet with new content to keep you interested. Imo when you have to buy expantion on a game there you allredy pay monthly for playing it should be criminalisised.
There are no games on the market today that works like this all have expantions you have to pay for.But 12 year old Asherons Call only did let you buy 2 expansions during it's livetime witch is bay far the best value for mony on the market the last 12 years and they deliver new content every month and have allways dunn. I do not play Asherons Call for now but Iam considdering it just to show them I support their system.
I can not understand why we have to pay monthly fee and buy new expantions at the same time.I much rather pay monthly fee and get game growing slowly than having to buy expansions.
The way i see it, I would have to say that the B2P model would have to be a lot more profitable then the P2P model is, companies like money. They like it when you buy their products. They like it even more when you buy the products then pay more for continued access. They like it even more if you do that and don't really play the game.
I think companies like continued money flow more then burst money flow. Granted Anet is attempting the burst kind, but they did this with GW1 and it didn't really change anything. Companies continue to do the P2P idea and some are F2P. Right now i only know of 1 company (I didn't do research on this, sorry) that does the B2P model and thats Anet. I'm kinda curious why that is?
Don't get me wrong, i'm all for B2P type model. Cheaper for all of us. But there has to be a reason Anet is the only one. If it was the wave of the future, why hasn't another company done this as well?
Now granted GW1 wasn't really an MMO (devs said so themselves) but it was dang close. Close enough to show there would be interest for this type from these types of players. Now I'm not sure what effect GW2 will have as they seem to be a true MMO this time around. But like i stated earlier they would have to show a pretty good margin of profit to show it's a safe venture.
Companies don't generally like the burst type model as it's not really self sustaining. They have to keep bringing out new products to keep the people interested and bring in more money. It can work but before other companies jump on they need to see it's a safe model and works well.
Which also means they will probably need to see a history of this working, and GW1 wasn't enough apparently as they haven't adopted it yet. I think it will be a little while before GW2 will have enough time under it's belt to show this type of payment option works better then P2P.
Note; the reason i say it has to work better is because this is generally a more risker way of doing things, so they generally need some pushing before they will try it out themselves..
People love free. Servers cost money. If your game is free and really polished and has actual depth of gameplay the masses are gonna play it. Question: How many servers are needed to support 20 million people online? Profit margin? Food for thought?
Generally speaking aren't all offline games B2P?? I mean since the days of Atari that's what I've been doing buying the game to play it and of course we have always paid for sequals (didn't have the ability to expand console games back in the day) so I think I may just be missing your point.
Well, by B2P model in MMO and some offline games I mean that such games have not just paid original, but also some paid DLCs (like Lair of the Shadowbroker for ME2). Also B2P means that these DLCs are not braking game's balance, but add more portions of lore (for example).
Such DLCs are not full add-ons and can be developed like classic MMO's content patches. The difference is that P2P games do not have to worry about content patches' quality (users already paid so why bother?). While B2P game must have really good DLCs or noone will buy them.
It's fun to say things like "bugless content" when release is more than a year away.
ArenaNet and NCsoft are have to make GW2 as bugless and optimized as possible or they will not be able to keep GW2 as B2P game (becouse game's maintaining cost will be increased becouse of bugs and poor optimization). And this is living example of how B2P model affect game's quality assurance
This isn't a living example of anything, they're nowhere close to releasing the game. Just because you have faith in them doesn't really have anything to do with whether or not they will actually deliver a bugless product.
FFXIV delivered a horribly buggy product so what did they do? Went from the p2p model to the b2p model to keep the game running.
Giving it some thought, I believe your onto something here. The only way a new game is gonna get the subscriber base of say ...WoW, will be with a really decent, actual interactive world, buy to play MMO. But it is gonna have to have actual depth and complexity and not be over the top hand holding- easy mode. Or at least include options for both interactive players and solo players.
So basically you are saying it's impossible to reach the successess of WOW by doing what WOW has already done?? I mean many people consider WOW to be the easiest mode game on the market yet somehow that equates to people wouldn't pay for a game like that?
"will be with a really decent, actual interactive world, buy to play MMO."
I think with that line you were onto something many of these games don't do these things and for others they just simply don't have that same "pop culture" appeal that WOW has (like LOTRO).
Depth and complexity will always be the bane of saying something will come out and be highly successful, the more complex I assure you the less people will play your game it's simple logic in that some of those people will simply not understand it and the easiest thing to do with something you don't understand is to ignore it (atleast it seems most folks treat life this way).
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
It's fun to say things like "bugless content" when release is more than a year away.
ArenaNet and NCsoft are have to make GW2 as bugless and optimized as possible or they will not be able to keep GW2 as B2P game (becouse game's maintaining cost will be increased becouse of bugs and poor optimization). And this is living example of how B2P model affect game's quality assurance
This isn't a living example of anything, they're nowhere close to releasing the game. Just because you have faith in them doesn't really have anything to do with whether or not they will actually deliver a bugless product.
FFXIV delivered a horribly buggy product so what did they do? Went from the p2p model to the b2p model to keep the game running.
For now ArenaNet keep all promises they gave (did you see demo?). It is their job to make this game as thay promised or they will share the fate of FFXIV.
Im sure ArenaNet and NCsoft have big reason to make GW2 B2P. It's not just an attempt to bring more players from other MMOs. This is attempt to rise MMO to a new level of quality.
It's fun to say things like "bugless content" when release is more than a year away.
ArenaNet and NCsoft are have to make GW2 as bugless and optimized as possible or they will not be able to keep GW2 as B2P game (becouse game's maintaining cost will be increased becouse of bugs and poor optimization). And this is living example of how B2P model affect game's quality assurance
This isn't a living example of anything, they're nowhere close to releasing the game. Just because you have faith in them doesn't really have anything to do with whether or not they will actually deliver a bugless product.
FFXIV delivered a horribly buggy product so what did they do? Went from the p2p model to the b2p model to keep the game running.
For now ArenaNet keep all promises they gave (did you see demo?). It is their job to make this game as thay promised or they will share the fate of FFXIV.
Im sure ArenaNet and NCsoft have big reason to make GW2 B2P. It's not just an attempt to bring more players from other MMOs. This is attempt to rise MMO to a new level of quality.
Again, yep. Sevial is right. They have balls to say we can do thing where you only buy a box and we still have enough money. If you played GW you have to know, if you didnt you dont know. At WoW it seems more expansions mean weirder eng-game content and cooler leveling - at GW since you had 20 lvl max it ment cool everything. Because leveling to lvl 20 was fast. And also every expansion brought nice new stuff. But at WoW every eng-game of every expansion is old with new expansion. At GW you could just play almost at whole world, after hardmore whole world - every map on max lvl. I just like that.
Played: Lineage 2,Guild Wars 1 and 2, Age of Conan, Ragnarok Online, LOTRO, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, EvE online Tried: KAL Online, Face of Mankind, ROSE online Playing: CS:GO
Gaming companies are noticing how often people spend money in an item shop. They know item shops, when handled correctly in a top tier MMO, will make them tons of money for VERY LITTLE COST. Look at that celestial mount steed in wow. That most likely costed them a tiny amount, compared to the 4 million dollars? (some large number) they made in the first week.
Also, there are more games with monthly payments that are working out fine.
Could we see a few B2P games here and there? Yup. But I'm sure those will be dominated by a bad cash shop. Companies want money and box sales won't be enough for many.
The way i see it, I would have to say that the B2P model would have to be a lot more profitable then the P2P model is, companies like money. They like it when you buy their products. They like it even more when you buy the products then pay more for continued access. They like it even more if you do that and don't really play the game.
I think companies like continued money flow more then burst money flow. Granted Anet is attempting the burst kind, but they did this with GW1 and it didn't really change anything. Companies continue to do the P2P idea and some are F2P. Right now i only know of 1 company (I didn't do research on this, sorry) that does the B2P model and thats Anet. I'm kinda curious why that is?
Don't get me wrong, i'm all for B2P type model. Cheaper for all of us. But there has to be a reason Anet is the only one. If it was the wave of the future, why hasn't another company done this as well?
Companies don't generally like the burst type model as it's not really self sustaining. They have to keep bringing out new products to keep the people interested and bring in more money. It can work but before other companies jump on they need to see it's a safe model and works well.
Exactly. And since there practically aren't any real B2P MMOs on the market atm (which would represent competition to the P2P model), why not use the P2P model instead for the time being, which brings more money for less work? From a developers point of view, it's a no brainer.
Thats why, I say thank god someone stood up and want's to shake things up. I really don't get the haters. In the long run, this is good for YOU ALSO.
Only guildwars so far is worth it. So the whole future of this genre is dependent on the success of one franchise ? I do not think so and games will be judged on their merit not their method of payment. How can the sole reason someone buys a game be because it has no subscription. Surely as a player of this genre you feel insulted by this purely pecuniary concern as your sole criteria.
Buy to play? It's alright I guess. Still, F2P with optional cash shop is good too. You can artificially make yourself stronger by paying, so why not? Also, being F2P makes things easier for more players to play.
Perhaps the biggest downside is that F2P games are usually not that well managed. Since everyone can join, then botters, cheaters, etc. who don't lose anything since they didn't pay to play run rampant.
Let's look at one of the most famous P2P games, WoW, once more. It is nice example of what the user really gets for 15$ per month:
New content patches are just new 5-mans and raid dungeons with new items to grind.
Lore becomes worse and worse. First these Bloodelf Paladins and Draenei Shamans arrived to Azeroth on a Starship. Then, Deathknights available to ANY race. Then Tauren Paladins and completely destroyed Azeroth.
PvP remains as unsuported as it was from the beginning. Where is world PvP? It is dead. Why there is still no faction balance between Alliance and Horde? Why there is still a lot of problems with PvP balance in general?
Completely remade persistant world in Cata. What for? It will become empty in few monthes after Cata release. They spent a lot of man-hours to make feature that no player will need. Everyone will again wait for group inside Dalaran, and farm one more instance after joining one more group.
EDIT: All new big add-ons cost much more then 15$ despite regular 15$ monthy payment.
EDIT: Users have no access to the game if they did not pay last month (even if they invest hundreds of $ in game before).
And all P2P lovers call this good game support? 15$ just for new instance every 3 monthes and ability to call GM to fix one more in-game issue (like fall underground)?
P2P developer gain money before they actually did something so they don't have to do their job good after that. But B2P developer HAVE to do great job and listen to the fans, or noone will buy their paid content.
IMO, the only MMOs out there that are actually worth a subscription fee are EVE and WoW.
The dosens and dosens of other P2P MMOs out there are not worth a subscription fee and it's obvious that the fact that they do have a subscription fee hasn't had any effect on it's quality or amount of content.
Likewise, there is absolutely no evidence that EVE and WoW would have any less content/quality if they didn't have a subscription fee.
Pretty much goes to show that PTP is nothing more than an easy way to get more money. Especially since a lot of people are brainwashed into thinking it's absolutely required for an MMO (which it isn't; server costs and what not are far cheaper than you would think and are more than easily covered from box sales).
Of course, there is also the community argument. Personally, I have found that WoW has one of the worst communities in an MMO. So I really don't see how PTP benefits that area at all.
GW2 is going to be the first MMO to have BTP (GW wasn't an MMO). If the game is really successful and is high quality/has lots of content, then it's clear that PTP isn't required in the slightest.
I think the followng will happen. MMO's will follow the Microsoft gaming network.
The individual subcription based games will start to fade in the coming years.
Blizzard will open BattleNet accounts that give you free access to SC2, D3, WOW and the new MMO for one general subcription fee. And even newer games will get added.
A total package 15 or 20 dollars to play all on line games and their added services (like e-sport, added scenario's and mods) will replace the single subscription based games. Even if there are individual subscriptions, they will tend to be not very good deals compared to the total bundles.
At that time everyone will need to follow and the regrouping of paid games will be a fact.
One could say SOE and others already use this technique, but they are not the industry's leader, Activision Blizzard is.
I prefer p2p, or b2p without a cash shop. If you have a vampire cash shop, then I will put a wooden stake in the games heart and delete it off of my computer. I like to have a fixed cost, and I consider expansions part of that fixed cost, for b2p/p2p.
Comments
GW2 won't be killing WoW much less the subscription model.
It's fun to say things like "bugless content" when release is more than a year away.
ArenaNet and NCsoft are have to make GW2 as bugless and optimized as possible or they will not be able to keep GW2 as B2P game (becouse game's maintaining cost will be increased becouse of bugs and poor optimization). And this is living example of how B2P model affect game's quality assurance
Exactly, nice proof of that is GW 1 and its expansions. Expansions were getting better and better.
Played: Lineage 2,Guild Wars 1 and 2, Age of Conan, Ragnarok Online, LOTRO, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, EvE online
Tried: KAL Online, Face of Mankind, ROSE online
Playing: CS:GO
Buy to Play will Die whitin the next 5 years.
Firstly, servers cost money, to break even you needa min amound of box sales and likely a ad program that people cant avoid.
then theres the whole internet cost. more and more ISP and lagre bandwide (sp) Corperation are getting into word fights about the cost. keeping the net up cost money, the more the net is used the more it cost.
then theres power cost, your electric bills (and the servers) will go up each year. a gamer (he who player 3 hours or so) uses just as mutch energy as someone who drives to work in his car every day, the polution is about 50% of a car.
Using the internet, and specialy programs / games that use more bandwide then avarage browsing will get taxed. this needs to be paid for, either by you directly in form of a eco tax ontop of your isp bill, or by the corporation ( by incl or raising sub prizes)
Nothing is as simple as it seem,the world is a very complex thing.
The way i see it, I would have to say that the B2P model would have to be a lot more profitable then the P2P model is, companies like money. They like it when you buy their products. They like it even more when you buy the products then pay more for continued access. They like it even more if you do that and don't really play the game.
I think companies like continued money flow more then burst money flow. Granted Anet is attempting the burst kind, but they did this with GW1 and it didn't really change anything. Companies continue to do the P2P idea and some are F2P. Right now i only know of 1 company (I didn't do research on this, sorry) that does the B2P model and thats Anet. I'm kinda curious why that is?
Don't get me wrong, i'm all for B2P type model. Cheaper for all of us. But there has to be a reason Anet is the only one. If it was the wave of the future, why hasn't another company done this as well?
Now granted GW1 wasn't really an MMO (devs said so themselves) but it was dang close. Close enough to show there would be interest for this type from these types of players. Now I'm not sure what effect GW2 will have as they seem to be a true MMO this time around. But like i stated earlier they would have to show a pretty good margin of profit to show it's a safe venture.
Companies don't generally like the burst type model as it's not really self sustaining. They have to keep bringing out new products to keep the people interested and bring in more money. It can work but before other companies jump on they need to see it's a safe model and works well.
Which also means they will probably need to see a history of this working, and GW1 wasn't enough apparently as they haven't adopted it yet. I think it will be a little while before GW2 will have enough time under it's belt to show this type of payment option works better then P2P.
Note; the reason i say it has to work better is because this is generally a more risker way of doing things, so they generally need some pushing before they will try it out themselves..
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
GW1 survived and it is 5 years old game with more then 6 million copies sold. And now ArenaNet is making another B2P game. This is the proof that B2P model is strong enough.
Also as I told before, you can see good examples of B2P model among some offline games (Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age). MMO requires more income then an offline game to survive and that is why GW2 will have more paid content than Mass Effect 2 (for example) has.
I don't have this hope because the truth of the matter is I believe in choice, while B2P may work great for me in every instance I can think of I can think of quite logical reasons why companies and consumers would use F2P and subscription based models as well and don't see why those people should be held to the whims of a certain few individuals who seem to see the need to go to war with any concept they feel doesn't fit them very well.
To me choice should be the factor that drives these decisions if the industry wants to continue to grow they should offer up options and not stick to any of the models as an industry standard.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
They were just first. Someone had to be first to make a good example.
The question is how soon other developers and publishers will understand that B2P is better then any other model
Generally speaking aren't all offline games B2P?? I mean since the days of Atari that's what I've been doing buying the game to play it and of course we have always paid for sequals (didn't have the ability to expand console games back in the day) so I think I may just be missing your point.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Giving it some thought, I believe your onto something here. The only way a new game is gonna get the subscriber base of say ...WoW, will be with a really decent, actual interactive world, buy to play MMO. But it is gonna have to have actual depth and complexity and not be over the top hand holding- easy mode. Or at least include options for both interactive players and solo players.
Subscription MMOs are imo by far the best form of pay system you can get in the mmo games.
By saying this I dont think subscription mmo's should ever release any expantions and never have any kind of cash shop.
By paying subscription fee your game should be updatet with new content to keep you interested. Imo when you have to buy expantion on a game there you allredy pay monthly for playing it should be criminalisised.
There are no games on the market today that works like this all have expantions you have to pay for.But 12 year old Asherons Call only did let you buy 2 expansions during it's livetime witch is bay far the best value for mony on the market the last 12 years and they deliver new content every month and have allways dunn. I do not play Asherons Call for now but Iam considdering it just to show them I support their system.
I can not understand why we have to pay monthly fee and buy new expantions at the same time.I much rather pay monthly fee and get game growing slowly than having to buy expansions.
People love free. Servers cost money. If your game is free and really polished and has actual depth of gameplay the masses are gonna play it. Question: How many servers are needed to support 20 million people online? Profit margin? Food for thought?
Well, by B2P model in MMO and some offline games I mean that such games have not just paid original, but also some paid DLCs (like Lair of the Shadowbroker for ME2). Also B2P means that these DLCs are not braking game's balance, but add more portions of lore (for example).
Such DLCs are not full add-ons and can be developed like classic MMO's content patches. The difference is that P2P games do not have to worry about content patches' quality (users already paid so why bother?). While B2P game must have really good DLCs or noone will buy them.
This isn't a living example of anything, they're nowhere close to releasing the game. Just because you have faith in them doesn't really have anything to do with whether or not they will actually deliver a bugless product.
FFXIV delivered a horribly buggy product so what did they do? Went from the p2p model to the b2p model to keep the game running.
So basically you are saying it's impossible to reach the successess of WOW by doing what WOW has already done?? I mean many people consider WOW to be the easiest mode game on the market yet somehow that equates to people wouldn't pay for a game like that?
"will be with a really decent, actual interactive world, buy to play MMO."
I think with that line you were onto something many of these games don't do these things and for others they just simply don't have that same "pop culture" appeal that WOW has (like LOTRO).
Depth and complexity will always be the bane of saying something will come out and be highly successful, the more complex I assure you the less people will play your game it's simple logic in that some of those people will simply not understand it and the easiest thing to do with something you don't understand is to ignore it (atleast it seems most folks treat life this way).
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
For now ArenaNet keep all promises they gave (did you see demo?). It is their job to make this game as thay promised or they will share the fate of FFXIV.
Im sure ArenaNet and NCsoft have big reason to make GW2 B2P. It's not just an attempt to bring more players from other MMOs. This is attempt to rise MMO to a new level of quality.
Again, yep. Sevial is right. They have balls to say we can do thing where you only buy a box and we still have enough money. If you played GW you have to know, if you didnt you dont know.
At WoW it seems more expansions mean weirder eng-game content and cooler leveling - at GW since you had 20 lvl max it ment cool everything. Because leveling to lvl 20 was fast. And also every expansion brought nice new stuff. But at WoW every eng-game of every expansion is old with new expansion. At GW you could just play almost at whole world, after hardmore whole world - every map on max lvl. I just like that.
Played: Lineage 2,Guild Wars 1 and 2, Age of Conan, Ragnarok Online, LOTRO, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, EvE online
Tried: KAL Online, Face of Mankind, ROSE online
Playing: CS:GO
I can't see the future being solely B2P.
Gaming companies are noticing how often people spend money in an item shop. They know item shops, when handled correctly in a top tier MMO, will make them tons of money for VERY LITTLE COST. Look at that celestial mount steed in wow. That most likely costed them a tiny amount, compared to the 4 million dollars? (some large number) they made in the first week.
Also, there are more games with monthly payments that are working out fine.
Could we see a few B2P games here and there? Yup. But I'm sure those will be dominated by a bad cash shop. Companies want money and box sales won't be enough for many.
Exactly. And since there practically aren't any real B2P MMOs on the market atm (which would represent competition to the P2P model), why not use the P2P model instead for the time being, which brings more money for less work? From a developers point of view, it's a no brainer.
Thats why, I say thank god someone stood up and want's to shake things up. I really don't get the haters. In the long run, this is good for YOU ALSO.
Eat me!
Only guildwars so far is worth it. So the whole future of this genre is dependent on the success of one franchise ? I do not think so and games will be judged on their merit not their method of payment. How can the sole reason someone buys a game be because it has no subscription. Surely as a player of this genre you feel insulted by this purely pecuniary concern as your sole criteria.
Buy to play? It's alright I guess. Still, F2P with optional cash shop is good too. You can artificially make yourself stronger by paying, so why not? Also, being F2P makes things easier for more players to play.
Perhaps the biggest downside is that F2P games are usually not that well managed. Since everyone can join, then botters, cheaters, etc. who don't lose anything since they didn't pay to play run rampant.
<TBA>
Let's look at one of the most famous P2P games, WoW, once more. It is nice example of what the user really gets for 15$ per month:
New content patches are just new 5-mans and raid dungeons with new items to grind.
Lore becomes worse and worse. First these Bloodelf Paladins and Draenei Shamans arrived to Azeroth on a Starship. Then, Deathknights available to ANY race. Then Tauren Paladins and completely destroyed Azeroth.
PvP remains as unsuported as it was from the beginning. Where is world PvP? It is dead. Why there is still no faction balance between Alliance and Horde? Why there is still a lot of problems with PvP balance in general?
Completely remade persistant world in Cata. What for? It will become empty in few monthes after Cata release. They spent a lot of man-hours to make feature that no player will need. Everyone will again wait for group inside Dalaran, and farm one more instance after joining one more group.
EDIT: All new big add-ons cost much more then 15$ despite regular 15$ monthy payment.
EDIT: Users have no access to the game if they did not pay last month (even if they invest hundreds of $ in game before).
And all P2P lovers call this good game support? 15$ just for new instance every 3 monthes and ability to call GM to fix one more in-game issue (like fall underground)?
P2P developer gain money before they actually did something so they don't have to do their job good after that. But B2P developer HAVE to do great job and listen to the fans, or noone will buy their paid content.
IMO, the only MMOs out there that are actually worth a subscription fee are EVE and WoW.
The dosens and dosens of other P2P MMOs out there are not worth a subscription fee and it's obvious that the fact that they do have a subscription fee hasn't had any effect on it's quality or amount of content.
Likewise, there is absolutely no evidence that EVE and WoW would have any less content/quality if they didn't have a subscription fee.
Pretty much goes to show that PTP is nothing more than an easy way to get more money. Especially since a lot of people are brainwashed into thinking it's absolutely required for an MMO (which it isn't; server costs and what not are far cheaper than you would think and are more than easily covered from box sales).
Of course, there is also the community argument. Personally, I have found that WoW has one of the worst communities in an MMO. So I really don't see how PTP benefits that area at all.
GW2 is going to be the first MMO to have BTP (GW wasn't an MMO). If the game is really successful and is high quality/has lots of content, then it's clear that PTP isn't required in the slightest.
I think the followng will happen. MMO's will follow the Microsoft gaming network.
The individual subcription based games will start to fade in the coming years.
Blizzard will open BattleNet accounts that give you free access to SC2, D3, WOW and the new MMO for one general subcription fee. And even newer games will get added.
A total package 15 or 20 dollars to play all on line games and their added services (like e-sport, added scenario's and mods) will replace the single subscription based games. Even if there are individual subscriptions, they will tend to be not very good deals compared to the total bundles.
At that time everyone will need to follow and the regrouping of paid games will be a fact.
One could say SOE and others already use this technique, but they are not the industry's leader, Activision Blizzard is.
I prefer p2p, or b2p without a cash shop. If you have a vampire cash shop, then I will put a wooden stake in the games heart and delete it off of my computer. I like to have a fixed cost, and I consider expansions part of that fixed cost, for b2p/p2p.