Subs aren't expensive. They're super cheap. But when you have other AAA games offered for free, trying to put a sub on a game and market it to the general MMORPG audience is like entering a foot race with ankle weights on. You just gotta be that much better than everyone else competing to win that race.
That's what you think, it can work decently if you're just paying 1 or 2 MMO subs.
If I wanted to play the upcoming Pantheon, Dual Universe and AoC, while keeping access to FF XIV it would be the price of a full game every month, this sub MMO's will likely force many to pick one even if they want to play them all.
I just don't like that, I hate having to resub if I just want to play sometimes a week in the MMO's I'm active on.
The problems with subs, i think comes from Subscription fatigue with so many "Online Services" and Subscriptions on other sites, is quite easy to start thinking twice before getting another sub, in my case for example i pay subs for netflix, psn, crunchyroll, humble bundle, spotify and many more, all of that really adds up you know?.
I guess the best model would be B2P with (Non-P2W) Cash shop, since besides Digital Extremes and their game Warframe, i rarely see a F2P game that strikes that right balance between paying and free costumers.
The problems with subs, i think comes from Subscription fatigue with so many "Online Services" and Subscriptions on other sites, is quite easy to start thinking twice before getting another sub, in my case for example i pay subs for netflix, psn, crunchyroll, humble bundle, spotify and many more, all of that really adds up you know?.
It's exactly this, the whole thing cumulates, especially if you play more than one sub MMO; paying a sub for one MMO that you end up playing just few times a week already is annoying, then with several upcoming MMO's being sub-based as well, it rather adds up a frustrating pressure to pay up several subs. So to me, I want to play AoC, but I also want to play DU, I'm not going to add up 3 MMO subs at once so I think I'll have to go with DU and ignore AoC.
It leads up to me being against subs and preferring B2P.
Subs aren't expensive. They're super cheap. But when you have other AAA games offered for free, trying to put a sub on a game and market it to the general MMORPG audience is like entering a foot race with ankle weights on. You just gotta be that much better than everyone else competing to win that race.
That's what you think, it can work decently if you're just paying 1 or 2 MMO subs.
If I wanted to play the upcoming Pantheon, Dual Universe and AoC, while keeping access to FF XIV it would be the price of a full game every month, this sub MMO's will likely force many to pick one even if they want to play them all.
I just don't like that, I hate having to resub if I just want to play sometimes a week in the MMO's I'm active on.
Which is great as there are literally thousands of F2P games that you can jump between at will. I'm just looking forward to a FEW games with people who prefer not to game-hop and have no problem paying $15 for a fair and even game experience without whales.
Not every game has to be made for you. Enjoy the thousands that are and leave a few leftovers for the rest of us.
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After having read the Gamescom interview article, and coming to this, I must say that My.com representatives handled this very poorly.
A couple of immediate points that I was left with from the get-go:
"In the past, My.com has published and developed primarily titles that were, from the ground up, built around a Free-To-Play model. This is not the case with Ashes of Creation, which is fully tailored towards a subscription-based business model. We want to make sure the game reaches our players with a business model and monetisation options that matches the expectations of the fans and backers of Ashes of Creation.
We are fully supporting the Non-Pay-to-Win vision that Steven and Intrepid Studios have, and we will implement the same model for the My.com version as they implement for their version.
1. They inversely imply that their lineup of other games is Pay-to-Win. This is not healthy for anyone.
2. EU game release is referred as My.com "version". As others have already pointed out, while technically true, is very bad in terms of PR and marketing with their background.
Rest of the article is not bad, but lacks redeeming factor, and as the P2W was addressed first with less-than-stellar wording, it sets the ground for below average press release.
Well a few things...
First of all,i do believe the built around cash shop and i also believe this is again the case even though they claim otherwise.What happens is if the non cash shop model is not as lucrative as they hope,they can quickly change over within a month or two.
secondly,i am not going to take a developer's word for anything,the Bless team tried to pull a dishonest fast one so these devs would surely lie to save their own face.
As to the title of the thread ..."honest" answers,we do NOT know that as of yet and we won't know hjow honest they are until an official release and a few months after that.
Instead,aside from the localization which we all understand by now as the normal,they are telling us what we want to hear,similar to the Bless team.
The one single developer whom i still trust the msot even though i have lost interest in their game design is Square Enix.I prefer the more silent non BS'ing developer,the one who will simply say "not good enough" play for free until we make it better.
Most devs and publishers are not like Square Enix,they are loud and telling us how great thery are,no thanks,i'll form my own opinions.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Everything from My.com has been absolute trash over and over again. I really don't care what their contracts claim I am not touching anything or anyone associated with them.
Since Steven Sharif's entire business acumen is making garbage appear to be gold, the my.com choice actually makes sense.
Fish out the leftover devs from the SOE dumpster, do the same with the publisher. Sounds like a a genre smasher for sure.
Which is great as there are literally thousands of F2P games that you can jump between at will. I'm just looking forward to a FEW games with people who prefer not to game-hop and have no problem paying $15 for a fair and even game experience without whales.
Not every game has to be made for you. Enjoy the thousands that are and leave a few leftovers for the rest of us.
lol, that's not my defenition of great, because I won't be playing AoC because I want to play DU, it's too expensive for me to maintain 3 MMO subscriptions at once. It's also frustrating to maintain one subscription for one MMO so that I can play around 2 or 3 times a week with my guild events and such.
You might find that great, I don't. And why I believe the subscription business model will fail on this upcoming MMO's, such as AoC and Dual Universe, very few exceptions on mainstream sub titles are capable to retain growth past their initial launch phases.
The fact that in a protective FAQ they state this: "My.com version" .. thats NOT something you want to see.. PERIOD. And especially not in a FAQ to calm people down XD
Better phrase it a little different next time my.com
Baloney. It was a total mea culpa of how they've been in the past. Everyone, every organization, deserves a chance to change direction. I'm willing to wait to see how they do. And, yes, my plan has always been to play on EU servers.
While My.com has been shady in the past, that doesn't mean they will always be so. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for the time being if and until I see otherwise.
EDIT: Why does seeing "My.com" version "scare" you (LOL)? I mean, if, say, Nexon publishes in Asia, doesn't it make sense to have the My.com / EU version, Nexon / Asia version, Intrepid / NA version and so forth?
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Which is great as there are literally thousands of F2P games that you can jump between at will. I'm just looking forward to a FEW games with people who prefer not to game-hop and have no problem paying $15 for a fair and even game experience without whales.
Not every game has to be made for you. Enjoy the thousands that are and leave a few leftovers for the rest of us.
lol, that's not my defenition of great, because I won't be playing AoC because I want to play DU, it's too expensive for me to maintain 3 MMO subscriptions at once. It's also frustrating to maintain one subscription for one MMO so that I can play around 2 or 3 times a week with my guild events and such.
You might find that great, I don't. And why I believe the subscription business model will fail on this upcoming MMO's, such as AoC and Dual Universe, very few exceptions on mainstream sub titles are capable to retain growth past their initial launch phases.
So you think every game that releases should follow your preferred monetization and the rest of us should have nothing? Why does every game need to tailor to you? Enjoy the other 95% that follow your preferred model.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
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So you think every game that releases should follow your preferred monetization and the rest of us should have nothing? Why does every game need to tailor to you? Enjoy the other 95% that follow your preferred model.
To me is about accessibility for everyone to play a game, and subs for me are not that model, when I want to play this upcoming MMO games that are coming out but I can't afford to keep 3 or 4 MMO subs, or when I have to pay a sub to play 2 or 3 times a week, it's one rather exclusive business model.
I don't know why you make this "us vs them" when it comes to business models, I assumed that everyone would agree they should be inclusive, not exclusive on the face of the general MMO audience.
Not that being sub or not changes a game itself on actual gameplay, in proper terms you can go to ESO and buy its optional sub, and puff sub game for you, if charging the sub upfront is your deal maker/breaker then why not I guess.
So you think every game that releases should follow your preferred monetization and the rest of us should have nothing? Why does every game need to tailor to you? Enjoy the other 95% that follow your preferred model.
To me is about accessibility for everyone to play a game, and subs for me are not that model, when I want to play this upcoming MMO games that are coming out but I can't afford to keep 3 or 4 MMO subs, or when I have to pay a sub to play 2 or 3 times a week, it's one rather exclusive business model.
I don't know why you make this "us vs them" when it comes to business models, I assumed that everyone would agree they should be inclusive, not exclusive on the face of the general MMO audience.
Not that being sub or not changes a game itself on actual gameplay, in proper terms you can go to ESO and buy its optional sub, and puff sub game for you, if charging the sub upfront is your deal maker/breaker then why not I guess.
If you want inclusive then include me. I want a game with a level playing field where nobody pays more to get more.
So again... for the 3rd time. 95% of games out there support what YOU want. Why must you force the model on every game? I’m not saying you can’t have 95% of the games with a model you like. Why can’t you just leave a few for the rest of us?
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
If you want inclusive then include me. I want a game with a level playing field where nobody pays more to get more.
So again... for the 3rd time. 95% of games out there support what YOU want. Why must you force the model on every game? I’m not saying you can’t have 95% of the games with a model you like. Why can’t you just leave a few for the rest of us?
It's not about what I like or not, it's about successful models, and the sub model has seen way more failures than successes, my point specifically to AoC is my doubts that this won't fall into B2P/F2P with a likely optional sub like ESO and several others did.
If you want inclusive then include me. I want a game with a level playing field where nobody pays more to get more.
So again... for the 3rd time. 95% of games out there support what YOU want. Why must you force the model on every game? I’m not saying you can’t have 95% of the games with a model you like. Why can’t you just leave a few for the rest of us?
It's not about what I like or not, it's about successful models, and the sub model has seen way more failures than successes, my point specifically to AoC is my doubts that this won't fall into B2P/F2P with a likely optional sub like ESO and several others did.
Far more F2P games fail... because there are far more out there. Enjoy the other 95% of MMORPGs. I wish our roles were reversed and I had 95% to choose from.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
I'm not quite sure why devs are willing to sell almost anything in a cash shop except MMO subs cut into smaller slices.
It could be a player buys a 30 day sub for $15 or can buy a $5 slice to pay for a week.
Perhaps we need to add in a pay by the hour option, say $.50 to $1.00 per hour for those who only wish to drop in for a short time every month.
In this era of online shopping and fully automated services it should be no big deal to let players sub and play for the time they wish.
Oh no, I definitely don't want to see this happen.
This is the kind of thing people said when 'harmless' microtranstions and DLC started appearing.. it's good to have options.. until $$$s started rolling in and games became completely designed around them even in the concept stages and now there's probably no going back. Now, people are employed in full time positions specifically to plan how games are going to take more of our money.
If we start to accept pay by the hour eventually it will become the only option for many games and that would be an absolute disaster for the MMO genre.
Post edited by TheDarkrayne on
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Glad I'm in NA, because I wouldn't even try Ashes, AoC is Conan ffs, if I was in the EU.
Eh what you talking about, are you comparing Ashes to Age of Conan or Conan Exiles the non-mmo survival game? I hardly see how Ashes is anything like Age of Conan other than both are MMO's, and it certainly has nothing in common with Exiles.
Or maybe you're just saying "AOC" belongs to Age of Conan, I could agree with that, wish there was a different acronym/abbreviation.
I'm not quite sure why devs are willing to sell almost anything in a cash shop except MMO subs cut into smaller slices.
It could be a player buys a 30 day sub for $15 or can buy a $5 slice to pay for a week.
Perhaps we need to add in a pay by the hour option, say $.50 to $1.00 per hour for those who only wish to drop in for a short time every month.
In this era of online shopping and fully automated services it should be no big deal to let players sub and play for the time they wish.
If memory serves me correctly Wildstar had that option. I'm not sure how popular it was though. But instead of that proposal, I am a fan of another system. Tiered monthly subscriptions! Genius huh? I know I know. That's just me.. fabulous as always!
Let's take WoW for example--as it is a game most are familiar with--and apply my system to it. Although I don't have much time to tinker with all the features come to mind, but you'll get the gist.
Tier 1 - $7.50 per month: all contents available but 10-man/25-man raids. This is good for people who would like to enjoy the slow leveling journey, playing alts, do crafting, dailies, etc. No raids basically means they don't have access to the new contents becoming available with patches.
Tier 2 - $15.00 per month: Full-access.
Tier 3 - $25.00 per month: Full-access + monthly gold + choice of cosmetic item + pots and elixirs and gems.
No cash-shops, no gold-selling, nothing.
I played WoW for about 6 years. There were periods that I didn't keep my sub because there wasn't much to do. Now if I had to pay half the regular price, I would've remained subbed for leveling alts, crafting, or the social part alone. But not for $15.
And during hardcore raiding period, specially before taking down a boss for the first time, not only I had to raid 5-6 hours a day, but I had to do a lot of farming for repairs and pots. That extra gold would've helped tremendously. So I would've definitely bumped up my sub tier.
Now this is just an example which I used to think about it back then. I am sure many games come up with their own formula and get rid of the cash-shop altogether. This is basically how most of the exclusive clubs work. Depending on the amount of your monthly membership fee, you'll get access to various part of the club. And when you do, you won't be paying anything extra. Not for drinks, meals, etc.
I'm not saying this would be groundbreaking, but definitely worth to explore for video games as well.
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"One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games and it cannot be done by men out of touch with their instinctive selves." - Carl Jung
And yet again no one in the EU region has suggested a better publisher. I still wait an answer to @Kyleran 's question from the other thread. What better publisher? And if you're going to offer up a ridiculous alternative like ProSieben or Gameforge, then you might as well suggest R2Games unless you have some compelling reason.
why and the hell do you keep going on about that? You think some random gamer is gonna suggest xyz publisher and the dev team is gonna say "OMG derp why didn't we think of that?" and leave mycoms deal? Get some sunlight bro.
I haven't gone on about it yet, but I can and now I probably will.
So you have no answer. I guess the answer being you and the rest don't know what the hell you want and you're mad that all your home grown alternatives are crap. You should make friends with Critical Thinking.
I still don't get the impact a publisher has, are we saying that they can add cash shop items? I can understand they might offer pre-order deals and so on, but how will they be able to make the game P2W?
So you think every game that releases should follow your preferred monetization and the rest of us should have nothing? Why does every game need to tailor to you? Enjoy the other 95% that follow your preferred model.
To me is about accessibility for everyone to play a game, and subs for me are not that model, when I want to play this upcoming MMO games that are coming out but I can't afford to keep 3 or 4 MMO subs, or when I have to pay a sub to play 2 or 3 times a week, it's one rather exclusive business model.
I don't know why you make this "us vs them" when it comes to business models, I assumed that everyone would agree they should be inclusive, not exclusive on the face of the general MMO audience.
Not that being sub or not changes a game itself on actual gameplay, in proper terms you can go to ESO and buy its optional sub, and puff sub game for you, if charging the sub upfront is your deal maker/breaker then why not I guess.
The difference between subscription only and a F2P cash shop is worlds apart. You mention being able to play 3 or 4 MMOs at the same time, well you can also go and play 3 or 4 versions of Candy Crush if you want, is that inherently better? F2P has made us sacrifice quality for quantity, community for social media "likes" and a fair playing field for P2W. It is an anathema to what makes gaming great.
And yet again no one in the EU region has suggested a better publisher. I still wait an answer to @Kyleran 's question from the other thread. What better publisher? And if you're going to offer up a ridiculous alternative like ProSieben or Gameforge, then you might as well suggest R2Games unless you have some compelling reason.
why and the hell do you keep going on about that? You think some random gamer is gonna suggest xyz publisher and the dev team is gonna say "OMG derp why didn't we think of that?" and leave mycoms deal? Get some sunlight bro.
I haven't gone on about it yet, but I can and now I probably will.
So you have no answer. I guess the answer being you and the rest don't know what the hell you want and you're mad that all your home grown alternatives are crap. You should make friends with Critical Thinking.
I still don't get the impact a publisher has, are we saying that they can add cash shop items? I can understand they might offer pre-order deals and so on, but how will they be able to make the game P2W?
I think it's like most any business agreement and detailed in a contract. Trion seems to have very little say, for example, in how XL sets up monetization for ArcheAge. I suppose there are contingencies for both parties if revenue numbers, or other obligations aren't met. If Ashes isn't pulling in the revenue My.com expects maybe they get to drop the game like we've seen some pubs do with third party titles.
Maybe they don't get to say what is sold, but can adjust the price within some agreed up band, or maybe they can add their own cosmetics, etc.
I doubt there is a cut and dried set of specifics for every studio/publisher deal. I have no idea though. I'm just guessing.
I think it's a case of "a sum of all fears' where over the years 3rd party publishers have been accused of and often times responsible for several great gaming "evils." The list includes: 1) unstable servers/ playing environment 2) poor customer service 3) influencing game design by demanding developers add cash shops especially if publishers are asked to fund part of the development. 4) controlling the regional prices of cash shop items or whether or not to include certain items in the game or store. 5) manipulating in game drop rates in order to encourage more sales in the cash shop. 6) taking advantage aka being greedy by using every way possible to monetize a game from cradle to grave. Selling early, alpha, beta, access, pre-order packages, box price, patron subs, cash shops, fees to skip login queues, the list goes "on and on my friend....' 7) publishing deals often collapse, leaving players either in the lurch with a closed game, or transferred to a new publisher sometimes even losing credit for all fees previously paid. 8) region locking is more prevalent when publishers are involved, especially when different per region. 9) failed to control or turned a blind eye to botting, hacking, or tactically supporting cheaters, with at worst a short ban especially if they are whales. 10) tend to be involved in PVP games which are believed to be "P2W" by whatever definition a gamer decides to adopt.
I'm sure there are more and all have happened to some degree for sure.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
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Far more F2P games fail... because there are far more out there. Enjoy the other 95% of MMORPGs. I wish our roles were reversed and I had 95% to choose from.
There are far more F2P/B2P MMO's than sub ones, let's put up mainstream titles on the consideration, the ones that retain most popularity on the genre, and it's where we see the often failure of subscription models.
Companies that intend to release MMO's with required subs should increase the flexibility of the model to cope with a wider audience that would be then willing to pay (more players could counter individual losses caused by it), because otherwise, a traditional sub for AoC, in my opinion, increases the likeness of the game falling into F2P, that wouldn't be a good thing under my.com from what I can tell.
Thanks but no thanks. My.com qualifies as a never again publisher in my list and there are enough games out there published by real cpmpagnies for me to not really miss out on much.
Comments
If I wanted to play the upcoming Pantheon, Dual Universe and AoC, while keeping access to FF XIV it would be the price of a full game every month, this sub MMO's will likely force many to pick one even if they want to play them all.
I just don't like that, I hate having to resub if I just want to play sometimes a week in the MMO's I'm active on.
I guess the best model would be B2P with (Non-P2W) Cash shop, since besides Digital Extremes and their game Warframe, i rarely see a F2P game that strikes that right balance between paying and free costumers.
It leads up to me being against subs and preferring B2P.
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Not every game has to be made for you. Enjoy the thousands that are and leave a few leftovers for the rest of us.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
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A couple of immediate points that I was left with from the get-go:
1. They inversely imply that their lineup of other games is Pay-to-Win. This is not healthy for anyone.
2. EU game release is referred as My.com "version". As others have already pointed out, while technically true, is very bad in terms of PR and marketing with their background.
Rest of the article is not bad, but lacks redeeming factor, and as the P2W was addressed first with less-than-stellar wording, it sets the ground for below average press release.
First of all,i do believe the built around cash shop and i also believe this is again the case even though they claim otherwise.What happens is if the non cash shop model is not as lucrative as they hope,they can quickly change over within a month or two.
secondly,i am not going to take a developer's word for anything,the Bless team tried to pull a dishonest fast one so these devs would surely lie to save their own face.
As to the title of the thread ..."honest" answers,we do NOT know that as of yet and we won't know hjow honest they are until an official release and a few months after that.
Instead,aside from the localization which we all understand by now as the normal,they are telling us what we want to hear,similar to the Bless team.
The one single developer whom i still trust the msot even though i have lost interest in their game design is Square Enix.I prefer the more silent non BS'ing developer,the one who will simply say "not good enough" play for free until we make it better.
Most devs and publishers are not like Square Enix,they are loud and telling us how great thery are,no thanks,i'll form my own opinions.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
You might find that great, I don't. And why I believe the subscription business model will fail on this upcoming MMO's, such as AoC and Dual Universe, very few exceptions on mainstream sub titles are capable to retain growth past their initial launch phases.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It could be a player buys a 30 day sub for $15 or can buy a $5 slice to pay for a week.
Perhaps we need to add in a pay by the hour option, say $.50 to $1.00 per hour for those who only wish to drop in for a short time every month.
In this era of online shopping and fully automated services it should be no big deal to let players sub and play for the time they wish.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
I don't know why you make this "us vs them" when it comes to business models, I assumed that everyone would agree they should be inclusive, not exclusive on the face of the general MMO audience.
Not that being sub or not changes a game itself on actual gameplay, in proper terms you can go to ESO and buy its optional sub, and puff sub game for you, if charging the sub upfront is your deal maker/breaker then why not I guess.
So again... for the 3rd time. 95% of games out there support what YOU want. Why must you force the model on every game? I’m not saying you can’t have 95% of the games with a model you like. Why can’t you just leave a few for the rest of us?
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Enjoy the other 95% of MMORPGs. I wish our roles were reversed and I had 95% to choose from.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
This is the kind of thing people said when 'harmless' microtranstions and DLC started appearing.. it's good to have options.. until $$$s started rolling in and games became completely designed around them even in the concept stages and now there's probably no going back. Now, people are employed in full time positions specifically to plan how games are going to take more of our money.
If we start to accept pay by the hour eventually it will become the only option for many games and that would be an absolute disaster for the MMO genre.
Eh what you talking about, are you comparing Ashes to Age of Conan or Conan Exiles the non-mmo survival game? I hardly see how Ashes is anything like Age of Conan other than both are MMO's, and it certainly has nothing in common with Exiles.
Or maybe you're just saying "AOC" belongs to Age of Conan, I could agree with that, wish there was a different acronym/abbreviation.
Let's take WoW for example--as it is a game most are familiar with--and apply my system to it. Although I don't have much time to tinker with all the features come to mind, but you'll get the gist.
- Tier 1 - $7.50 per month: all contents available but 10-man/25-man raids. This is good for people who would like to enjoy the slow leveling journey, playing alts, do crafting, dailies, etc. No raids basically means they don't have access to the new contents becoming available with patches.
- Tier 2 - $15.00 per month: Full-access.
- Tier 3 - $25.00 per month: Full-access + monthly gold + choice of cosmetic item + pots and elixirs and gems.
No cash-shops, no gold-selling, nothing.I played WoW for about 6 years. There were periods that I didn't keep my sub because there wasn't much to do. Now if I had to pay half the regular price, I would've remained subbed for leveling alts, crafting, or the social part alone. But not for $15.
And during hardcore raiding period, specially before taking down a boss for the first time, not only I had to raid 5-6 hours a day, but I had to do a lot of farming for repairs and pots. That extra gold would've helped tremendously. So I would've definitely bumped up my sub tier.
Now this is just an example which I used to think about it back then. I am sure many games come up with their own formula and get rid of the cash-shop altogether. This is basically how most of the exclusive clubs work. Depending on the amount of your monthly membership fee, you'll get access to various part of the club. And when you do, you won't be paying anything extra. Not for drinks, meals, etc.
I'm not saying this would be groundbreaking, but definitely worth to explore for video games as well.
I still don't get the impact a publisher has, are we saying that they can add cash shop items? I can understand they might offer pre-order deals and so on, but how will they be able to make the game P2W?
The difference between subscription only and a F2P cash shop is worlds apart. You mention being able to play 3 or 4 MMOs at the same time, well you can also go and play 3 or 4 versions of Candy Crush if you want, is that inherently better? F2P has made us sacrifice quality for quantity, community for social media "likes" and a fair playing field for P2W. It is an anathema to what makes gaming great.
1) unstable servers/ playing environment
2) poor customer service
3) influencing game design by demanding developers add cash shops especially if publishers are asked to fund part of the development.
4) controlling the regional prices of cash shop items or whether or not to include certain items in the game or store.
5) manipulating in game drop rates in order to encourage more sales in the cash shop.
6) taking advantage aka being greedy by using every way possible to monetize a game from cradle to grave. Selling early, alpha, beta, access, pre-order packages, box price, patron subs, cash shops, fees to skip login queues, the list goes "on and on my friend....'
7) publishing deals often collapse, leaving players either in the lurch with a closed game, or transferred to a new publisher sometimes even losing credit for all fees previously paid.
8) region locking is more prevalent when publishers are involved, especially when different per region.
9) failed to control or turned a blind eye to botting, hacking, or tactically supporting cheaters, with at worst a short ban especially if they are whales.
10) tend to be involved in PVP games which are believed to be "P2W" by whatever definition a gamer decides to adopt.
I'm sure there are more and all have happened to some degree for sure.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Companies that intend to release MMO's with required subs should increase the flexibility of the model to cope with a wider audience that would be then willing to pay (more players could counter individual losses caused by it), because otherwise, a traditional sub for AoC, in my opinion, increases the likeness of the game falling into F2P, that wouldn't be a good thing under my.com from what I can tell.