So you're telling me that game publishers are mainly interested in obtaining a maximum profit, in accordance with current market trends!?!?!!!??11
O noes!! We must Protest . This is our time to rize up!!!
lol how naive.
The overwhelming success of the WoW business model will ensure that your boycott will travel about as far as the end of this thread.
All the well formulated arguments you can muster will amount to brightly polished brass on the Titanic.
However I will wish you the best of luck.
Looks like we have another fish who took the bait and the fisherman is frying up. Going and feeding corporate greed. Wow you and 4 million other people have all bought into the lies from blizzard about how the game can't run without that monthly fee. I feel sorry for all of ya'll. It looks like your the naive one not I. Their overwhelming success is due to their ability to lie to its consumers. Believe me or not its your $15 a month you wasting on a lie. I'm not the only one who has analized finacial statements to discover the truth. I know several 100 people myself who have came to the realization and stopped buying into it. Take them and if each one of them gets even a few and then each of those a few more its only a matter of time that those companies like blizzard with WoW will have to stop their greed in order to keep their customers.
All of us under its spell. We know that it's probably magic.
Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that called the young sailors.
The voice might be one and the same.
I've heard it too many times to ignore it.
It's something that I'm supposed to be.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.
We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started... and know the place for the first time. -T.S. Eliot
I'm fine with paying the monthly fee.. In fact, all the people using Guild Wars as an example of a an MMO without the monthly fee are just reinforcing my view on it. If Guild Wars is the best we can expect without a monthly fee... then I am glad to pay it.
Don't get me wrong.. i liked guild wars and played it heavily for a few months... but then it's over. It isn't that it isn't good... it's just that there isn't much to it. If persistence of the game universe and perpetual updates cost 15 bucks a month.. I'm happy to pay it.
Originally posted by Salvatoris I'm fine with paying the monthly fee.. In fact, all the people using Guild Wars as an example of a an MMO without the monthly fee are just reinforcing my view on it. If Guild Wars is the best we can expect without a monthly fee... then I am glad to pay it. Don't get me wrong.. i liked guild wars and played it heavily for a few months... but then it's over. It isn't that it isn't good... it's just that there isn't much to it. If persistence of the game universe and perpetual updates cost 15 bucks a month.. I'm happy to pay it.
The thing is GW is a completely different style of game. If GW was designed along the idea of grinding to level 60, 100, 150, or even more for those games that don't cap levels, then it would take much longer to reach max level and then get bored of the end game content in the same amount of time you get bored with the content without the high level cap. I tried WoW for the two week trial. I reached level 25 and was bored with the game already. I played GW to max level on 6 character professions and played 100s of hours in the end game content and only just started getting bored of it after playing for 1200 hours over about 10 months. Now with factions I can play new content and professions and will likely get just as many if not more hours of enjoyment out of the game.
Now if WoW didn't have a monthly fee I'd probably play it a few hours once in a while during a month but probably would spend as much time as I did during the two week trial getting to level 25 because it just gets boring doing the same thing over and over. The beginning was ok because I didn't have to grind so much to get to the next level or get new gear. But if I recall the quests were requiring much higher kill x thing x times compared to those of the early levels. I'm not particularly fond of just sitting there after hitting the button to attack and wait til the monster is dead. But not only that I found I had to stand around and wait for spawns because there were never enough to go around. And then there are the quests to kills a boss who spawns like once per long interval of time like say 15 , 30, 60 minutes etc maybe longer farther in the game perhaps but you can't exactly go do something else and come back because someone else ends up getting the boss then. so your having to sit around for that too.
On the other hand GW differs from this syle of game because it uses instances with does away with the problems of too many players doing the same thing and not enough spawns and the boss camping and having to stand around waiting for spawns. But also it is team orientated. The game is designed for a team of players to work together using skill and stategy to succeed. Where as all other MMOs I've played you play all by yourself and there is no need to group play. Although you can if you want but all that does is allow you to complete things quicker but offers no real different play. Some end game content from what I read needs group play because the massive numbers of enemies to fight but if I bore of the trying to get to that point then it doesn't really matter.
GW is more like a platform single player game but instead of you controling all the party members its you with your character and the others characters are other people who you join up with to progress though the story and even go back and play parts of the story if you like too. I have not seen any other MMO that has had a storyline in the game. If WoW had a storyline that unfolded in the game and not just a bunch of quests unrelated to each other it probably would be more entertaining and I wouldn't bore of it as easily. I had some how expected to have a story unfold of a much greater magnitude and quality along the lines of the previous warcraft strategy games. Like you'd start the game and you have a sequence maybe a cinema and/or dialog sequence setting you into the reason your a hero and setting forth into the would as a hero. And then you have a direction to go to follow the story and also have other quests and stuff that you can do along the way to help build your level as you continue to get more of the story. But it doesn't have any story line at all to follow.
Basically other than these differences I found the same community experience in both. I could chat with people online both friends and others I didn't know. The only thing different in that aspect is the running accross other people outside but then in all the other games was more trouble than it was worth and had no real quality to it and was just hey someone else is out here. Most of the time people I ran accross would either steal my kills, my drops, bother me about PvPing while I'm PvEing, buff beg, or otherwise do something non friendly.
One last thing is there are other MMOs without monthly fees that offer basically the same gaming experience that WoW has without the monthly fee. The only difference being the theme of the game. WoW uses the previous warcraft games as a back story and a model for the visual appearance of the game. Stip that off of it and its pretty much the same as every other MMO. Most if not all the quests are go kill x thing x times for various unreleated reasons rinse and repeat 100s of time over from beginning to end. You constantly need to get better gear for nearly every level you reach in order to handle the enemies at the same level you reached. Getting the gear is more or less a grind because you most likely don't have enough to buy it by the time you reach the need for it. Again no storyline to follow. Same types of things to do. And so on.
Originally posted by Salvatoris I'm fine with paying the monthly fee.. In fact, all the people using Guild Wars as an example of a an MMO without the monthly fee are just reinforcing my view on it. If Guild Wars is the best we can expect without a monthly fee... then I am glad to pay it. Don't get me wrong.. i liked guild wars and played it heavily for a few months... but then it's over. It isn't that it isn't good... it's just that there isn't much to it. If persistence of the game universe and perpetual updates cost 15 bucks a month.. I'm happy to pay it.
So far I have spent over a thousand hours on Guild Wars without getting bored or finishing the game.
Its people who rush through games that require grind fests. I could say something pithy about the younger generation requiring instant gratification but my memory is going and I cant remember what I was going to write
That said when I pay a monthly fee for a game - Tabula Rasa or Heroes Journey I will be expecting a lot more than was in Guild Wars.
I hear ya, I enjoyed guild wars up to the day i stopped playing it, and I certainly didn't run through all the content. I am the last person that would be out to trash the game... I just don't think it can be compared to the games I pay a monthly fee for in terms of depth of content. Imagine if guild wars actually had a persistent world and a map about 100 times bigger than what it has now. Imagine your guild hall wasn't instanced, but was a functional building placed on the map, maybe with your own guild town surrounding it... player owned mounts, crafting, meaningful chance interactions with other players... the ability to have a buddy who just logged on join you half way through a quest, or even at the final boss.
It's like you said, for a monthly fee i expect significantly more than guild wars has to offer, and so far I have managed to find that. My fondness of MMORPGs doesn't keep me from appreciating good singleplayer, or regular multiplayer games.. so i do still enjoy guild wars, oblivion, battlefield and mechwarrior... I just expect MORE when i have to pay 15 bucks, and since I have always managed to find ti, i dont mind paying.
Originally posted by Salvatoris I hear ya, I enjoyed guild wars up to the day i stopped playing it, and I certainly didn't run through all the content. I am the last person that would be out to trash the game... I just don't think it can be compared to the games I pay a monthly fee for in terms of depth of content. Imagine if guild wars actually had a persistent world and a map about 100 times bigger than what it has now. Imagine your guild hall wasn't instanced, but was a functional building placed on the map, maybe with your own guild town surrounding it... player owned mounts, crafting, meaningful chance interactions with other players... the ability to have a buddy who just logged on join you half way through a quest, or even at the final boss. It's like you said, for a monthly fee i expect significantly more than guild wars has to offer, and so far I have managed to find that. My fondness of MMORPGs doesn't keep me from appreciating good singleplayer, or regular multiplayer games.. so i do still enjoy guild wars, oblivion, battlefield and mechwarrior... I just expect MORE when i have to pay 15 bucks, and since I have always managed to find ti, i dont mind paying.
Yes those are nice features. But the game designers didn't want those features in the game. Mainly for all the bad things that came along with having a persistant world that I mentioned previously. The guild halls are on the map so to speak but not travelable to through a zone and not each guilds guild hall since that would require a large map area for them to be put on and what would they do if there were more guilds than the map could support. However it is possible that features can be added to do most of the things you mentioned. Its a popular request to have mounts. I read at one point that they put it on a list of items to discuss adding to the game and that its possible they may decide to add the feature even though it is not needed as a mode of travel which is why other games have them. There is crafting in the game. Tons of NPCs will craft stuff if you bring the materials needed to craft. Which isn't much different than gathering the materials in other MMOs and crafting yourself. The chance interaction is lost in the areas outside of towns but again its a small loss to do away with all the bad things. They ability to join while in progress is being worked on. 1st it will be for someone who was already in that lost the connection but its not far from implimenting that to allow to invite someone to join up with you after you have already left town. The limiting factor would be the party size. So if your party was max size you'd have to remove someone to do so. This wouldn't be a hard choice if you have henchmen but if the whole party is all real people it would probably be best not to kick someone in preference to a friend because then that person who was kicked would not be able to finish.
The thing for me about all the pay to plays I tried is it doesn't offer enough as they are now for me to justify the price. Back to WoW for a sec. If it had cinematics and a continueous story as you progressed through the game, was designed with playing as a party adventuring like with traditional RPGs both video and table top, didn't cost $50 to start, didn't have to pay for the expansions, and there was an expansion twice a year or more then it would be worth the monthly fee. In fact several others would as well.
But WoW hasn't had any expansions almost 2 years later. Glancing at the patches it looks like some dungeons were added. Did you have to pay for those? Or are they covered in the monthly fee? See I figure if each year I'm given 2-3 full games worth of new content each year and don't have to pay for it on top of the monthly fee, then to me the monthly fee is worth it. Also the if you subcribe for 12 months I don't like the idea of paying it all up front. I'd be willing to sign a contact holding me to the fee even if I cancel early but if I'm going to pay a montly fee I'd rather pay it monthly and not all up front just for the break in price. But at the same time I shouldn't have to pay more just because I budget my money on a monthly basis.
I guess that is why we look at it differently. The game I am playing now, Dark Age of Camelot cost me $19.95 for the game and all expansions, that of course included a month of play. It offers a huge wealth of content and since I have been playing i have seen substantial content additions in free patches. The games I played before this were SWG and AO, despite their problems, they both offered a ton of content and tons of options for varying gameplay. I have never played WoW, so i cant really comment on it. I guess it all comes down to find a game you feel is worth 50 cents a day
Did the 19.95 include 1 month of free access? Because thats not all that bad if with each one you got 1 month free then its basically like buying the box for the cost of one month plus a tid bit for material cost.
Yep, that's how I felt about it too. I really don't understand paying 50 bucks for a game with a monthly fee, and I never have. I have always come in after they have dropped the game price to at most about 29... so it's like 15 for the box and one month paid...
But this DAoC deal on the epic edition was really good. You can get it almost anywhere online for 19.99. Which is about what any of the expansions would cost by themselves, and I t comes with all 6, including the newest one. So it's really like paying 5 bucks for all the physical media and month of the subscription. Or another way to look at is that by the time you pay what a regular offline game costs, you could have played this one for 3 months... which is longer than I have played most non-mmo games I have ever bought.
There are reasons that you pay for MMOs. First of all, if they did not charge, they would be losing money for the life of the game, second, all that shiney new content most MMOs bring? That takes a dev team. Servers for major MMO games cost a TON to maintain, they are essentally super-computers. OC3 internet? Thousands a year. Team of developers and support staff? once again, many thousands per year. Non-pay-to-play games generally sacrafice in one or more of these areas. Guild wars (I hate GW by the way) used quite a bit of instancing to reduce server strain and very little new material was put into updates. You have to pay for the new content anyway in the form of a costly expansion pack. Lets compare it to a game like CoH or EVE that continually has new content, tons of player interaction at all times, and all of this for $15 a month. You pay either way, but Pay to play games tend to cost more over time and deliver a more expensive and content-filled, evolving universe.
A late comer to the discussion. It more or less ended. If you haven't done so read everything. Then do some research for games like WoW is the one I like to refer to. You will find after analizing their finacial records that they can still turn a profit of 10s of millions without the monthly fee. Then also concider Sony. Their monthly fee covers access to all their games and each one of them are just as big as WoW in costs. And Sony makes 10s of millions after that.
Aside from that I took back my objection to NCsoft monthly fee games because they don't charge for the expansions or much more than the cost of the 1st month for the base game. this also shows that the monthly fees for some games can be lower. I will leave it at that and let you read the rest of the thread for more details.
Originally posted by fhtagn There are reasons that you pay for MMOs. First of all, if they did not charge, they would be losing money for the life of the game, second, all that shiney new content most MMOs bring? That takes a dev team. Servers for major MMO games cost a TON to maintain, they are essentally super-computers. OC3 internet? Thousands a year. Team of developers and support staff? once again, many thousands per year. Non-pay-to-play games generally sacrafice in one or more of these areas. Guild wars (I hate GW by the way) used quite a bit of instancing to reduce server strain and very little new material was put into updates. You have to pay for the new content anyway in the form of a costly expansion pack. Lets compare it to a game like CoH or EVE that continually has new content, tons of player interaction at all times, and all of this for $15 a month. You pay either way, but Pay to play games tend to cost more over time and deliver a more expensive and content-filled, evolving universe.
Originally posted by FonzyBear We all need to boycott pay to play games. The companies can run these games without charging monthly fee. Greed is why companies charge monthly fees.
Wow. More stupidity? Booooooo!
Shayde - SWG (dead) Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled - Some deluded SWG fanboi who pities me. I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too. 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
I'm curious to your age Fonzybear. When you complete a degree at university some people get £15,000 a year in a job, others get £30,000. Is that mean, or greedy on the part of those getting bigger wages?
Realise all companies are in business to make money. The more money they can make the better for the company. Programmers salaries are HEFTY and you normally have a big team working on a game. By your logic, people should only pay just over the costs of things, its a nice view but massively naive. The 360 doesnt cost $300 dollars to make, so are Microsoft being evil for selling it for more? The ps3 CERTAINLY won't cost $500, so should we boycott that too?
In a world like that all that happen is the supply of money would be quashed, people would be paid less (if you arent working, your pocket money would go down) and the net change would be unnoticable.
Guild Wars is not a proper MMORPG, and it shouldnt be regarded as one. As for WOW, yes its making a healthy profit, but they didnt know how many people were going to join when they first created the game, and at the moment its pretty much the only mmorpg which is quite new and has decent sever populations. They have a monopoly on the market, which makes their prices very inflexible, if the profit remains as huge as you seem to think it is soon more and more games will enter the market, driving down prices and creating cheaper monthly fees.
Ultimately most people derive more enjoyment out of a mmorpg than something costing 50cents a day, like half a cup of coffee or a newspaper. Sorry to dissappoint but if you expect to get something for nothing with any of the new games coming out your gonna have a long wait.
Luckily for Fonzybear NC Soft are publishing another 2 or 3 games that wont have a monthly fee. From what I read they will make money by selling in-game items.
I prefer pay to play games because it is a natural barrier to many kinds of jerks. An MMO isn't much fun if it is full of kids acting like morons. It doesn't filter all of them, but quite a few.
Originally posted by ShaydeWow. More stupidity? Booooooo!
Um Shayde your reply is not called for and it is insulting.
Originally posted by blunder1983 Its always fun to read threads like these.
I'm curious to your age Fonzybear. When you complete a degree at university some people get £15,000 a year in a job, others get £30,000. Is that mean, or greedy on the part of those getting bigger wages?
This has nothing to do with wages. Research several of the game companies and see for yourself the facts. A company that turns a profit of exceedingly more than needed is greed. If 10s of millions of profit can still be made each year with a reduced or eliminated monthly fee then it is in fact greed since dev costs and everything is included in the finacial info.
Originally posted by blunder1983 Realise all companies are in business to make money. The more money they can make the better for the company. Programmers salaries are HEFTY and you normally have a big team working on a game. By your logic, people should only pay just over the costs of things, its a nice view but massively naive. The 360 doesnt cost $300 dollars to make, so are Microsoft being evil for selling it for more? The ps3 CERTAINLY won't cost $500, so should we boycott that too?
I do realise all companies are in the business to make money and I'm not saying they can't make money but what you and the others replied saying they are not greedy are failing to understand what greed is. I'm not asking for them to pay just over cost. If I was then I'd be saying they must sell the box for $5 and have no monthly fee. Then they'd only make like 1 million in profits if they were lucky.
Your going into another realm with microsoft. Microsoft doesn't make $600 million revenue off of just the 360 if they did then their price is greed. Same goes for sony. They make a reasonable profit off of the systems but not a greedy profit. Sony electronics made $44 billion in revenue and games $8 billion so the playstation prices are reasonable. Sony's profit for 2006 1 billion (includes sony music, tv, video, etc). So their profit off of the playstation is right around my stated 10s of millions of profit that is less than the level for greed.
Originally posted by blunder1983 Guild Wars is not a proper MMORPG, and it shouldnt be regarded as one. As for WOW, yes its making a healthy profit, but they didnt know how many people were going to join when they first created the game, and at the moment its pretty much the only mmorpg which is quite new and has decent sever populations. They have a monopoly on the market, which makes their prices very inflexible, if the profit remains as huge as you seem to think it is soon more and more games will enter the market, driving down prices and creating cheaper monthly fees.
Guild wars is an MMORPG in the technical sense since there is a massive number of people online at the same time playing it but it does not contail the traditional everyone is in the same exact instance of the entire game at the same time. Aside from that finacial reps of the game have stated that guild wars costs just as much to run as the big MMOs out there such as WoW since it is one of the big ones. Sever populations: Lineage ~400,000 daily, Lineage II ~300,000 daily, Guild wars somewhere in between, WoW is around the same I'm having trouble finding the document that had the stats in it. WoW certainly isn't a monopoly and their price not inflexable. Don't forget Everquest and Everquest II which I believe are just as big of daily access. This is just 6 of the big MMOs of those WoW costs the most over all to play. They all cost right around the same to operate but yet WoW brings in 10 times more revenue than the other 5 combined and more than 10 times the profit made on any one of the other 5. This alone shows the greed.
If you haven't done so read what I said in my previous posts. NCsoft is much better in its pricing for the consumer however it could be a bit lower depending on how many expansions their games have per year or the amount of content those expansions have. Sony is probably around what it should be since their monthly fee includes all their online games in the price. Thats 5 or 6 current titles and one upcoming all for $24 or less a month. $4-5 per month per game. And as far a I seen the games and expansions basically cover the costs of materials and one months access with a bit of profit but not nearly as much as the profit turned from WoW at $50 for the box and only one month free.
Originally posted by Mordah I prefer pay to play games because it is a natural barrier to many kinds of jerks. An MMO isn't much fun if it is full of kids acting like morons. It doesn't filter all of them, but quite a few.
There are just as many jerks including scam artists, griefers, rude people, immature kids, etc in the pay to plays as there are in the monthly fee free and free to plays. Most just choose to ignore the fact when it comes to pay to plays. In my trial of WoW and everquest II I actually encountered more jerks than I have on any of the other non pay to play including Guild Wars and free to play including Silkroad.
Actually prices are not likely to come down. In fact developers think they arent charging enough for their games.
I read an article on Gamasutra where the Bioware guys were saying they thought MMORPG's should charge more than $15 per month to play.
What we should be up in arms about is Blizzard raking in money for WOW and not having enough servers to meet the demand - so people are forced to que up and wait before they can even get onto play. Now that is greed and maybe crap technology.
Originally posted by _Shadowmage Actually prices are not likely to come down. In fact developers think they arent charging enough for their games. I read an article on Gamasutra where the Bioware guys were saying they thought MMORPG's should charge more than $15 per month to play. What we should be up in arms about is Blizzard raking in money for WOW and not having enough servers to meet the demand - so people are forced to que up and wait before they can even get onto play. Now that is greed and maybe crap technology.
I thought there was only a queue if you were playing the trial. At the rate they are raking in money this only adds to the greed then if all of their severs are like that. It is my understanding that each realm is its own server. And thus its the players choice to play on one that is always overloaded or on one that you don't have to wait. This however causes issue I guess if you made your character on that realm(server) before it was overloaded and now suffer due to that. To continue if this is still the case why they don't have it so that your character can be played on any of the realms(servers) its beyond me. Looking at the realms list its like there is 100 instances of the game running separate from each other. So if your on Duskwood then you can't communicate or do anything with people on Silvermoon. Just to pull a couple random ones from the list. And as far as I know you can't just up and move to another server on a whim and have all your friends come over to the server on a whim either.
Originally posted by _Shadowmage Actually prices are not likely to come down. In fact developers think they arent charging enough for their games. I read an article on Gamasutra where the Bioware guys were saying they thought MMORPG's should charge more than $15 per month to play. What we should be up in arms about is Blizzard raking in money for WOW and not having enough servers to meet the demand - so people are forced to que up and wait before they can even get onto play. Now that is greed and maybe crap technology.
Some prices are coming down. Take AO for instance, where you can play the basic version of the game for free. I admit that my copy sits mostly unused on my harddisk, but that is due to my preference for FPS combat. Not that I couldn't afford the usual 13 Euro/month btw . And there is Guild Wars, which has not much of a persistent world but otherwise pretty nice.
So there are alternatives, and I expect them to become more numerous over time.
Monthly fee: $14.95 = $179.40 per year. Yearly fee: 12.95/month = $155.40 per year.
Expansions/Chapters
Released every 3 months - $29.99 = $119.96 Released every 4 months - $39.99 = $119.97 Released every 6 months - $49.99 = $99.98
Based on the above, it would be smart to release an expansion/chapter every 4 months. That is a difference of $35.43 a year compared to a yearly fee.
My point is, if you can't afford $35.43 a year extra for an *excellent* MMO that you thoroughly enjoy, then you need stop playing MMOs and get a better job. Either that, or stop playing MMOs and invest/save your money.
The fact is, gaming companies are in the MMO market to make a profit (not including completely free MMOs). If people have a problem with that, I suggest stop buying groceries and anything else, for that matter.
Originally posted by Rabiator Originally posted by _Shadowmage Actually prices are not likely to come down. In fact developers think they arent charging enough for their games. I read an article on Gamasutra where the Bioware guys were saying they thought MMORPG's should charge more than $15 per month to play. What we should be up in arms about is Blizzard raking in money for WOW and not having enough servers to meet the demand - so people are forced to que up and wait before they can even get onto play. Now that is greed and maybe crap technology.
Some prices are coming down. Take AO for instance, where you can play the basic version of the game for free. I admit that my copy sits mostly unused on my harddisk, but that is due to my preference for FPS combat. Not that I couldn't afford the usual 13 Euro/month btw . And there is Guild Wars, which has not much of a persistent world but otherwise pretty nice.
So there are alternatives, and I expect them to become more numerous over time.
What you point out, I agree with. However, if you don't pay for AO, you watch ads. Guild Wars sells expansions. They both turn profit, and accordingly are greedy by FonzyBears standards. At least that's what I gather... If I am wrong, please correct me.
I tried to try AO - after downloading a gig of game and numerous patches.
I also try not to judge a game on its graphics - but in this case it was so ugly (compared to guild wars that I was/am still playing) that I couldnt get into the game. So I uninstalled it.
I realize the difference in graphics is due to the age of the game /engine but no thanks. I will wait for Tabula Rasa to come out for my sci-fi fix. And I am happy to pay for it.
I draw the line at buying a game, paying a monthly fee and paying for the expansion as well.
- Tabula Rasa - buy game, pay fee, get free expansions (unless its a really major one when they may charge) - Guild Wars - buy game, buy 2 expansions, no monthly fee.
I think these are reasonable models for me as a consumer.
Comments
Why are there so many songs about rainbows
and what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
and rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it.
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.
Who said that every wish would be heard
and answered when wished on the morning star?
Somebody thought of that and someone believed it.
Look what it's done so far.
What's so amazing that keeps us star gazing
and what do we think we might see?
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.
All of us under its spell. We know that it's probably magic.
Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that called the young sailors.
The voice might be one and the same.
I've heard it too many times to ignore it.
It's something that I'm supposed to be.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.
We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started... and know the place for the first time.
-T.S. Eliot
I'm fine with paying the monthly fee.. In fact, all the people using Guild Wars as an example of a an MMO without the monthly fee are just reinforcing my view on it. If Guild Wars is the best we can expect without a monthly fee... then I am glad to pay it.
Don't get me wrong.. i liked guild wars and played it heavily for a few months... but then it's over. It isn't that it isn't good... it's just that there isn't much to it. If persistence of the game universe and perpetual updates cost 15 bucks a month.. I'm happy to pay it.
-----Zero Punctuation Eve Online Review-----
Now if WoW didn't have a monthly fee I'd probably play it a few hours once in a while during a month but probably would spend as much time as I did during the two week trial getting to level 25 because it just gets boring doing the same thing over and over. The beginning was ok because I didn't have to grind so much to get to the next level or get new gear. But if I recall the quests were requiring much higher kill x thing x times compared to those of the early levels. I'm not particularly fond of just sitting there after hitting the button to attack and wait til the monster is dead. But not only that I found I had to stand around and wait for spawns because there were never enough to go around. And then there are the quests to kills a boss who spawns like once per long interval of time like say 15 , 30, 60 minutes etc maybe longer farther in the game perhaps but you can't exactly go do something else and come back because someone else ends up getting the boss then. so your having to sit around for that too.
On the other hand GW differs from this syle of game because it uses instances with does away with the problems of too many players doing the same thing and not enough spawns and the boss camping and having to stand around waiting for spawns. But also it is team orientated. The game is designed for a team of players to work together using skill and stategy to succeed. Where as all other MMOs I've played you play all by yourself and there is no need to group play. Although you can if you want but all that does is allow you to complete things quicker but offers no real different play. Some end game content from what I read needs group play because the massive numbers of enemies to fight but if I bore of the trying to get to that point then it doesn't really matter.
GW is more like a platform single player game but instead of you controling all the party members its you with your character and the others characters are other people who you join up with to progress though the story and even go back and play parts of the story if you like too. I have not seen any other MMO that has had a storyline in the game. If WoW had a storyline that unfolded in the game and not just a bunch of quests unrelated to each other it probably would be more entertaining and I wouldn't bore of it as easily. I had some how expected to have a story unfold of a much greater magnitude and quality along the lines of the previous warcraft strategy games. Like you'd start the game and you have a sequence maybe a cinema and/or dialog sequence setting you into the reason your a hero and setting forth into the would as a hero. And then you have a direction to go to follow the story and also have other quests and stuff that you can do along the way to help build your level as you continue to get more of the story. But it doesn't have any story line at all to follow.
Basically other than these differences I found the same community experience in both. I could chat with people online both friends and others I didn't know. The only thing different in that aspect is the running accross other people outside but then in all the other games was more trouble than it was worth and had no real quality to it and was just hey someone else is out here. Most of the time people I ran accross would either steal my kills, my drops, bother me about PvPing while I'm PvEing, buff beg, or otherwise do something non friendly.
One last thing is there are other MMOs without monthly fees that offer basically the same gaming experience that WoW has without the monthly fee. The only difference being the theme of the game. WoW uses the previous warcraft games as a back story and a model for the visual appearance of the game. Stip that off of it and its pretty much the same as every other MMO. Most if not all the quests are go kill x thing x times for various unreleated reasons rinse and repeat 100s of time over from beginning to end. You constantly need to get better gear for nearly every level you reach in order to handle the enemies at the same level you reached. Getting the gear is more or less a grind because you most likely don't have enough to buy it by the time you reach the need for it. Again no storyline to follow. Same types of things to do. And so on.
So far I have spent over a thousand hours on Guild Wars without getting bored or finishing the game.
Its people who rush through games that require grind fests. I could say something pithy about the younger generation requiring instant gratification but my memory is going and I cant remember what I was going to write
That said when I pay a monthly fee for a game - Tabula Rasa or Heroes Journey I will be expecting a lot more than was in Guild Wars.
I hear ya, I enjoyed guild wars up to the day i stopped playing it, and I certainly didn't run through all the content. I am the last person that would be out to trash the game... I just don't think it can be compared to the games I pay a monthly fee for in terms of depth of content. Imagine if guild wars actually had a persistent world and a map about 100 times bigger than what it has now. Imagine your guild hall wasn't instanced, but was a functional building placed on the map, maybe with your own guild town surrounding it... player owned mounts, crafting, meaningful chance interactions with other players... the ability to have a buddy who just logged on join you half way through a quest, or even at the final boss.
It's like you said, for a monthly fee i expect significantly more than guild wars has to offer, and so far I have managed to find that. My fondness of MMORPGs doesn't keep me from appreciating good singleplayer, or regular multiplayer games.. so i do still enjoy guild wars, oblivion, battlefield and mechwarrior... I just expect MORE when i have to pay 15 bucks, and since I have always managed to find ti, i dont mind paying.
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The thing for me about all the pay to plays I tried is it doesn't offer enough as they are now for me to justify the price. Back to WoW for a sec. If it had cinematics and a continueous story as you progressed through the game, was designed with playing as a party adventuring like with traditional RPGs both video and table top, didn't cost $50 to start, didn't have to pay for the expansions, and there was an expansion twice a year or more then it would be worth the monthly fee. In fact several others would as well.
But WoW hasn't had any expansions almost 2 years later. Glancing at the patches it looks like some dungeons were added. Did you have to pay for those? Or are they covered in the monthly fee? See I figure if each year I'm given 2-3 full games worth of new content each year and don't have to pay for it on top of the monthly fee, then to me the monthly fee is worth it. Also the if you subcribe for 12 months I don't like the idea of paying it all up front. I'd be willing to sign a contact holding me to the fee even if I cancel early but if I'm going to pay a montly fee I'd rather pay it monthly and not all up front just for the break in price. But at the same time I shouldn't have to pay more just because I budget my money on a monthly basis.
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Yep, that's how I felt about it too. I really don't understand paying 50 bucks for a game with a monthly fee, and I never have. I have always come in after they have dropped the game price to at most about 29... so it's like 15 for the box and one month paid...
But this DAoC deal on the epic edition was really good. You can get it almost anywhere online for 19.99. Which is about what any of the expansions would cost by themselves, and I t comes with all 6, including the newest one. So it's really like paying 5 bucks for all the physical media and month of the subscription. Or another way to look at is that by the time you pay what a regular offline game costs, you could have played this one for 3 months... which is longer than I have played most non-mmo games I have ever bought.
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double post.. my bad.
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Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
I'm curious to your age Fonzybear. When you complete a degree at university some people get £15,000 a year in a job, others get £30,000. Is that mean, or greedy on the part of those getting bigger wages?
Realise all companies are in business to make money. The more money they can make the better for the company. Programmers salaries are HEFTY and you normally have a big team working on a game. By your logic, people should only pay just over the costs of things, its a nice view but massively naive. The 360 doesnt cost $300 dollars to make, so are Microsoft being evil for selling it for more? The ps3 CERTAINLY won't cost $500, so should we boycott that too?
In a world like that all that happen is the supply of money would be quashed, people would be paid less (if you arent working, your pocket money would go down) and the net change would be unnoticable.
Guild Wars is not a proper MMORPG, and it shouldnt be regarded as one. As for WOW, yes its making a healthy profit, but they didnt know how many people were going to join when they first created the game, and at the moment its pretty much the only mmorpg which is quite new and has decent sever populations. They have a monopoly on the market, which makes their prices very inflexible, if the profit remains as huge as you seem to think it is soon more and more games will enter the market, driving down prices and creating cheaper monthly fees.
Ultimately most people derive more enjoyment out of a mmorpg than something costing 50cents a day, like half a cup of coffee or a newspaper. Sorry to dissappoint but if you expect to get something for nothing with any of the new games coming out your gonna have a long wait.
Luckily for Fonzybear NC Soft are publishing another 2 or 3 games that wont have a monthly fee. From what I read they will make money by selling in-game items.
This has nothing to do with wages. Research several of the game companies and see for yourself the facts. A company that turns a profit of exceedingly more than needed is greed. If 10s of millions of profit can still be made each year with a reduced or eliminated monthly fee then it is in fact greed since dev costs and everything is included in the finacial info. I do realise all companies are in the business to make money and I'm not saying they can't make money but what you and the others replied saying they are not greedy are failing to understand what greed is. I'm not asking for them to pay just over cost. If I was then I'd be saying they must sell the box for $5 and have no monthly fee. Then they'd only make like 1 million in profits if they were lucky.
Your going into another realm with microsoft. Microsoft doesn't make $600 million revenue off of just the 360 if they did then their price is greed. Same goes for sony. They make a reasonable profit off of the systems but not a greedy profit. Sony electronics made $44 billion in revenue and games $8 billion so the playstation prices are reasonable. Sony's profit for 2006 1 billion (includes sony music, tv, video, etc). So their profit off of the playstation is right around my stated 10s of millions of profit that is less than the level for greed. Guild wars is an MMORPG in the technical sense since there is a massive number of people online at the same time playing it but it does not contail the traditional everyone is in the same exact instance of the entire game at the same time. Aside from that finacial reps of the game have stated that guild wars costs just as much to run as the big MMOs out there such as WoW since it is one of the big ones. Sever populations: Lineage ~400,000 daily, Lineage II ~300,000 daily, Guild wars somewhere in between, WoW is around the same I'm having trouble finding the document that had the stats in it. WoW certainly isn't a monopoly and their price not inflexable. Don't forget Everquest and Everquest II which I believe are just as big of daily access. This is just 6 of the big MMOs of those WoW costs the most over all to play. They all cost right around the same to operate but yet WoW brings in 10 times more revenue than the other 5 combined and more than 10 times the profit made on any one of the other 5. This alone shows the greed.
If you haven't done so read what I said in my previous posts. NCsoft is much better in its pricing for the consumer however it could be a bit lower depending on how many expansions their games have per year or the amount of content those expansions have. Sony is probably around what it should be since their monthly fee includes all their online games in the price. Thats 5 or 6 current titles and one upcoming all for $24 or less a month. $4-5 per month per game. And as far a I seen the games and expansions basically cover the costs of materials and one months access with a bit of profit but not nearly as much as the profit turned from WoW at $50 for the box and only one month free. There are just as many jerks including scam artists, griefers, rude people, immature kids, etc in the pay to plays as there are in the monthly fee free and free to plays. Most just choose to ignore the fact when it comes to pay to plays. In my trial of WoW and everquest II I actually encountered more jerks than I have on any of the other non pay to play including Guild Wars and free to play including Silkroad.
Actually prices are not likely to come down. In fact developers think they arent charging enough for their games.
I read an article on Gamasutra where the Bioware guys were saying they thought MMORPG's should charge more than $15 per month to play.
What we should be up in arms about is Blizzard raking in money for WOW and not having enough servers to meet the demand - so people are forced to que up and wait before they can even get onto play. Now that is greed and maybe crap technology.
And there is Guild Wars, which has not much of a persistent world but otherwise pretty nice.
So there are alternatives, and I expect them to become more numerous over time.
Monthly fee: $14.95 = $179.40 per year.
Yearly fee: 12.95/month = $155.40 per year.
Expansions/Chapters
Released every 3 months - $29.99 = $119.96
Released every 4 months - $39.99 = $119.97
Released every 6 months - $49.99 = $99.98
Based on the above, it would be smart to release an expansion/chapter every 4 months. That is a difference of $35.43 a year compared to a yearly fee.
My point is, if you can't afford $35.43 a year extra for an *excellent* MMO that you thoroughly enjoy, then you need stop playing MMOs and get a better job. Either that, or stop playing MMOs and invest/save your money.
The fact is, gaming companies are in the MMO market to make a profit (not including completely free MMOs). If people have a problem with that, I suggest stop buying groceries and anything else, for that matter.
Cartman has a big fat ass!
And there is Guild Wars, which has not much of a persistent world but otherwise pretty nice.
So there are alternatives, and I expect them to become more numerous over time.
What you point out, I agree with. However, if you don't pay for AO, you watch ads. Guild Wars sells expansions. They both turn profit, and accordingly are greedy by FonzyBears standards. At least that's what I gather... If I am wrong, please correct me.
Cartman has a big fat ass!
I tried to try AO - after downloading a gig of game and numerous patches.
I also try not to judge a game on its graphics - but in this case it was so ugly (compared to guild wars that I was/am still playing) that I couldnt get into the game. So I uninstalled it.
I realize the difference in graphics is due to the age of the game /engine but no thanks. I will wait for Tabula Rasa to come out for my sci-fi fix. And I am happy to pay for it.
I draw the line at buying a game, paying a monthly fee and paying for the expansion as well.
- Tabula Rasa - buy game, pay fee, get free expansions (unless its a really major one when they may charge)
- Guild Wars - buy game, buy 2 expansions, no monthly fee.
I think these are reasonable models for me as a consumer.