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Preordering :D
KingJiggly
Member Posts: 777
This being my first thread ever, I would like to start of with preordering. Why do people preorder? I myself have never preordered, becuase I have a fear of buying a mmo for 100 bucks then it turning into a... well crapfest. Like when I heard about the 3 million preorders of Swtor. Now this is theoretical, so please don't blast. Lets say swtor turns out to be a great game, and those 3 mil eople love it. First, there all like "Yeah I preordered the best game ever and my grandma exploded in glee when she saw it" (I hope it's good btw). Now thats good for them, but lets say the game turns out to be a stupid "WoW clone" and they say "I spent 100$ on this dumb game and my grandma exploded in anger when she saw it". Now, not only did your gandma explode, now you just wasted 100 dollars (or franc, pound, chickens) on it, your left with this computer game that may (or may not) be able to be returned for a quarter of the price. It also ruins it for future preorders in my opinion.
But, like the saying goes "Opinions are like &^%holes; everyone has one and all of them stink", let me hear your opionion on preordering, and why you do (or do not) it? 
P.s. I don't think the above question is supposed to have a question mark... but Idk. Its a MYSTERY.
Edit: P.s.s Should I preorder Gw2?
Comments
first off i think its an excellent question to start off with. mine was probly something stupid like 'is this game any good?'
secondly, preordering usually brings with it some perks, so don't forget to leave that out the equation. now, whether those perks are worth paying double the price or more, is a completely different set of smelly "opinions". but for many folks they are.
i actually used to have a collection of the boxed editions of the games i'd played. but no longer could justify saving them (most were just plain ol' bought it at walmart boxed sets). yet it was fun for me to be a collector. to look up above my computer and see not just the boxes but the memories attached to them with friends and stories from things that happened ingame. physical things can be important to us, just in and of themselves.
so we have perks, we have memories attached to an object (if we are a collector of such things). another reasonis that for some people its voting with their wallets. by preordering they are saying, hey, i like what you've done here. even though perhaps they have never even played beta they really feel from all the reports that they have heard about different aspects of game X, that its something they want to support. for example Darkfall, many folks bought it and continue to support it, not b/c its a perfect game, but b/c its a game that contains things they want to see in general in gaming.
finally, i think there's the hype train. plain and simple, folks just get worked up and bullrush the preorder so they can be part of the 'first', which finally loops us back to the ingame perks. often these perks are designations that someone has been there from the beginning (the panda in WoW used to be like that). and with that comes a certain sense of pride years down the road as the game continues.
now, i have in the past been known to buy CE's, and i will admit i am tempted to with GW2, but that's really going to depend on my income and the perks involved with purchasing the CE. will the payoff be enough for me. frankly, at my age, and with the economy the way it is, i'm doubtful. but others are not in the straits im in and the payoff of simply having been one of the first is enough for them.
long answer, to a good question.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
If I want to try the game to max lvl anyway, and don't care about reviews and such, because a review doesn't tell me if I am going to have fun, why the hell shouldnt I pre-order?
"I am not a robot. I am a unicorn."
I am mostly against pre-ordering MMOs, just because I have been burnt too many times. Furthermore, the collectable items and all that stuff usually doesn't matter much to me to justify the price. And a game that allows those who pre-order to have a serious advantage over other customers just seems wrong in theory and is indicitive that they are just trying to make all their money up front because they don't have faith in their product.
As far as pre-ordering console games, I am all for it. Of course I just do the five bucks down at Gamestop or something like that. You get great additional content for not having to pay extra money and it's a game you are certain you are going to be buying anyway. Of course everyone is doing this now so it's important to shop around to find the best deal.
But I would strongly suggest you don't pre-order MMOs, or at least wait as long as you can to get a fair assessment on the game and pre-order the last week available. If it's a game you know you are going to give a shot no matter what then I suppose you might as well go for it, but I'd recommend not paying the extra cash for the SE. Thanks a lot Warhammer Online lol.
I should really add a poll but i am to lazy. Anyway, I like these answers
I agree about preordering console games though. I mean, usually you know what the game is all about before it comes out. (COD, Halo, Pokemon, SSB, Mario, Battlefield, etc). Console games are so... stale. Addicting but stale. MMos are more complicated i guess...
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovation