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misconception of box price+sub+shop
MeGaTronPower
Member Posts: 80
There is a mmorpg players misconception of negative view on box price+ sub+ cash shop. Funcom as a company is small they dont have bioware's budget. Tsw design decision from the get go was a story driven mission expensive cutscene +voice overs just like star wars old republic. The decision for sub+box price+ cash hsop was for tsw long term future content. I could only assume they want to contiune doing new missions new cutscene and new future voice overs thsoe are really expensive.
Funcom is not greedy by moving toward these kind of practice for the mmorpg. Its just they choose expensive route with new missions and voice overs, these things cost big time in long term. Funcom is merely looking to produce more income to be able to make future missions and vo and other features if there are left over. You cannot simply blame funcom for doing what they are doing. They dont have $200 million dollar budget liek star wars old republic. I can see why average mmorpg players may think that funcom is being greedy, but i assure you they are not. I wish they did not went with story and voice overs, but you cannot turn back the clock or time.
Star wars old republic has said that their story and voice overs are really expensive, and that their future content most likely will not have voice overs anymore for a good reason. This is from bioware's mouth. And its for a good reason, why they are ditching voice overs stories and cutscenes.
Whats done is done, they cant regret it. Its a decent game it could be good later on. I may eventually check it out a year later. I just hope you guys have a different perspective on funcom's box price+sub+ cash shop. Those who are playing should support funcom's future content updates through these. Of course, unknown numbers of tsw players will surely be expecting more missions cutscenes with voice overs for future contents as well, funcom needs help from its player base to do just that.
Comments
Sankaku once claimed TERA was the most expensive MMO released in Japan because it had the highest box price a sub and a cash shop.
It failed horribly in Japan because the gaming cuture frowned on all of those things.
I have already said if I were(never going to happen) going to hire voice actors I wouldn't try to get a bunch of super expensive actors. I would probally get a bunch of jr college students to do it where I could pay them considerably less. For the main chars I might get some kind of long term contract going.
It does seem a lot for the current mmo market to take in at the US. With almost 1000's of online games out paying a box-sup-$shop does seem very extreme.
It makes the MMO player feel like they have to keep up with P2W items(if there are any to be had) sub fee and comp hardware. Now computer hardware is a very iffy thing when it comes to mmo's. When vinilla wow came out it used to be rn at like 50 fps on a redeon 9250. Now you need at least a Radeon 3000+ or geforce 200+. Also the radeon 9250 sat in A pci slot were using PCI-E 3.0 now. If you added up all the pc's/hardware you've had over your mmo span It's gottin very expensive just to keep up with MMO's nowadays.
I mean the best fanboy awnsere SWTOR forums gave players for not getting past 20 fps in illum was spend 2000$ to play a 60$ game. That's a very unreal thing to ask people to do.
With the current economy, and uncertaintiy of our future right now I mean my jobs stock is a 4$ a share we could be out of buisness in 4 months. I'm just not willing to commit on blow after blow after blow. I'll take one or 2 but not all 3.
People don't care tbh. Double dipping in realm of on-going payments was too much for many.
For me it was also big turn off. Ther were other reasons, but this one was preety big.
I miss DAoC
It's not my concern what the model is or what the company's situation is compared to other companies. My only concern is the entertainment I get for my money. UO is a box plus sub plus boosters/item mall. Until account management became so convoluted that it was near impossible to sub, resub or even FIND my accounts I enjoyed playing it. SWTOR was an abomination. I regret having even paid the box price, let alone the month of sub after it. AoC, I regularly revisit. The cash shop extras add value to the game for me, so I don't mind paying box, sub and extra for that. TSW was... I don't know how to describe it. I couldn't see paying the box price for that, let alone box and sub.
The problem isn't the business model for me. It's the value and entertainment offered for the money that they are asking for.
"Hey, give these guys a break, they don't have EA/Bioware money," is not my concern.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
There are plenty of developers that don't have the budget Bioware/EA did for SW:TOR in fact no one in history has had that budget and yet msot managed to not have a box+sub+Cash Shop business model from the start.
Also stop trying to portray FUncom as some poor,independant,struggling developer.They are a publically traded coorporation who was doing very well and had fingers in amny pies in Europe.If they are in financial constraints now it's from their own mistakes and decisions and I for one choose not to pay for them.
YOu also can't point to the amoutnf of VOiceovers in TSW and comapre it to the amouint in SW:TOR as it's nowhere close so nowhere near the same expense.
In my opinion there is no misconception here just rationalization
I don't hate TSW and would of propably palyed it if it weren't for the business model as is my right to decide.It was an informed decision.
Actually i will compare a bit. The voice overs in TSW are actually a lot better imho. I have played through both and I do no feel the need to spacebar because they are scripted so well. Graphically SWTOR wins, but TSW's story is really interesting.
That being said, I do not feel huge amounts of VO belong in MMo's (that is discussion for another thread). I also do not like cash shops in any mmo, however TSW is limiting it to appearence only so its is not so bad. Not a fan of Sparkle Pony in WoW either lol.
Quality of voiceovers is subjective and not pertinent to the topic.Comparing the amount of VO and therefore the comparitive costs is.
MY GOD, stop with this "TSW = Story/VO only", it's bullshit.
I was in the beta, and so, I completed the story in under a week, I'm playing for 3 months now (5 months if you include beta), do you know why? because the game is far more than just VO and story....
I also have 2400 funcom bonus point that I got for free, I didn't buy anything with it because the cash shop is crap, and there is nothing that I want in it (ok, maybe I will buy the dog, it does look cool).
In my opinion, all the money Funcom spent of VO, and to a great extent, the story, was completely wasted on me.
They had a kernel of a good idea--the theme to me was a great setup for a story driven game. However, for me they made a FATAL mistake. They tried to give story without interactivity, without choices, without emotion. My character just stands there like a blob, mute to whatever people are saying. There's no projection of my voice into the equation, no emotional investment in my character. It reminds me of the old Far Cry FPS where the NPC VOs would often say, "You're a quiet one, aren't ya?" It's not just a story-driven MMO--it's a story-railroaded MMO.
And after playing SWTOR for about 6 months, I can say that to a large extent, SWTOR did the story part pretty well. I had a good deal of freedom to give my character a personality, even if it was only in my own mind--I had no illusions that I was affecting the gameworld to any large extent. However, that flavoring was significant to me--getting the choice to let an NPC live or to kill them was something that I often had to stop and stare at the screen for a while as I imagined how he was thinking.
I can understand folks who don't care for story-driven theme park MMO. But understand that I view the standard MMO fare of XP-/gear-grinding raiding/PvP gameplay with equivalent disinterest. I haven't played WoW, nor am I likely to play GW2 because of the lack of a strong story element.
This is somewhat curious. No doubt everybody has their own opinions, and I'm not going to speak for anybody else here - but often it is precisely the business model that can kill the value and entertainment offered for the money that they are asking...
I'm not sure how you can separate the business model from the value/entertainment/price ratio.
Obviously if I do not find a game to be entertaining, then it does not matter if the game is F2P/B2P/P2P (subject to the infinite number of varying definitions for those terms and what they include).
However, as has been far too often (imo) the case of late - games that I have found entertaining have changed their business model. At this point, not only does the value offered for the money change - having to pay more to do the same - but the combination of that and other changes made during the conversion leave the game less entertaining for me.
For me, a freemium conversion usually means the death of the game. I continued on with CoX - but to an extent, that was partially because I had already put so much money into the game over the years that I did not notice the conversion factor as much as I did with other games.
As far as TSW though, it was not really the box + sub + shop that caused problems. It's that I would have had to build two new rigs for the girlfriend and I to be able to play it. Or...I could just play other games that our machines are more than capable of playing.
It wasn't a case of looking at $50 + $15 + anything... it was a case of looking at hundreds upon hundreds of dollars - in a crappy economy - nope, not happening.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%