Ultima Online Increases Monthly Subscription Rate

Thanks to Blues News for pointing out an announcement from Origin/EA that Ultima Online's monthly subscription rate will increase to $12.95, though you can still buy 6-month prepaid packages for the previous rate of $9.99 per month. We covered Sony's flat-rate MMO subscription a few days ago, and it'll be interesting to see if EA would consider doing similarly for their properties, which would include Earth And Beyond and The Sims Online. But does Ultima Online still have certain charms that other MMORPGs can't offer?

Comments

Where does the money go?

[Kelerain]

I have been following planetside, which launched recently at $12.95/mo + $50 box. This seems awfully expensive. Can they not afford to roll the game costs into the monthly fee? Compared to entertaiment vs most games this price is awful. So my question is, can they afford to do this any other way? Where does the money go (in what ammounts)? I know the obvious stuff they tell you (bandwidth, servers, admins, patches) but does that suck up the entire ammount? I would think they would make more by giving the game away or at least for much less than they do. Where does the money go?

Re:Where does the money go?

[sweetooth]

The telco's for example know better than to pull a stunt like this. I know of few if any DSL providers that stick you with the full modemn cost (somewhere ~$250), and most have constant 'special promotions' that include a 'free' modemn. The cost of this comes back to them in the monthly fees.

Telcos have charged outrageous fees for modems and installation for DSL/cable etc. ISPs that offer DSL not provided by the telcos are often charging full price for modems. I've recently seen the costs of installation and modems drop because the telcos are trying to increase their market and that is a good way to get people over the initial cost several hundred dollars. Of course they just make it right back through higher monthly fees and modem rental fees, but they have a larger burden to offset than game manufacturers.

I think that paying $50 for a box, that lasts only 1 month before becoming fairly useless on its own is a bit of a ripoff. They need a better buisness model.

Why should they get a better business model when this one is working fine for them now? There seem to be relatively few people bitching about the initial cost to buy into the game. Mostly, I think, due to the fact that most games cost $40 - $50 up front. Charging less for the game initially might draw in more people, but some bean counter would have to sit down and see if it actually increased profits.

Re:Where does the money go?

[Teppy]

I run an MMO; we charge $13.95/month. Here are the costs:

$0.74 Credit card company
$0.90 Bandwidth
$0.38 Hardware, assuming 2-year replacement

With only 2000 subscribers, we're not yet at the point where we need to have paid GMs or customer support staff. However, we're close, and that's where the real costs come in. Right now, half of my time is spent on support. I work 80 hours/week, and am probably 2x as efficient at support as a non-developer would be. As we grow, we probably need a $30k/yr cost-to-employ person per 1000 players, so add to the above:

$2.50 Customer Support

So that's $4.52/month. I've heard that most of the big comapnies spend a bit more than that ($6-$8 total).
The problem with including many months of gameplay with a retail purchase is that a publisher/developer sees just a fraction of the retail price - the store and distributer take a big bite.
I know that Blizzard includes online play with their titles. Does anyone know whether you can summon someone if you, for instance, lose an item?

Ultima's Lasting Appeal

[rickwood]

I started out with UO, and switched to AC. I've also played DAoC and play tested a few that were promising but never were released. EQ gave me motion sickness, though I understand that they've fixed this since. I recently switched back to UO. I have many reasons, including the fact that all my bro's switched back to UO. One big thing though is UO doesn't limit my moral choices.

Using AC as an example, if "A$$NUGG3+" starts mouthing off to you or is just being annoying your choices are find someplace else to be, or log out. (Assuming he's not doing something you could call a GM over, of course.) Now, what I want to do, and what my character would do is kill this punk mofo and take his gear. AC doesn't really let you do that. Going PK in AC is kind of a pain (You have to do a quest), and unless you're part of the right clan you're just gonna get run out of the game. (Important Safety Tip: Unless you know it's okay for you to be there, don't go to "The Hub" as a PK.) Even then, unless the punk in question is a PK as well, you can't touch them.

Not so in UO. In UO, while there are penalties and consequences in game to killing someone who hasn't actually stolen from you or attacked you, you can kill them, for any reason or no reason at all. So when "A$$NUGG3+" says, "u r gay ur guild is gay", etc., you can beat him down. (For the record, I am one of those annoying people who role plays, so when you insult my guild, I "keep it in play" as we said back in the day.)

True, there are zones where you are protected by the "Guards", and if you try and attack someone there you probably will never land the blow before you're off to resurrect. Most places if you attack someone who is flagged as an innocent, i.e. they haven't done anything bad in game, you'll likely get a "Murder Count", but that isn't the end of the world. There are other places where it's law of the jungle.

I'll pony up the extra dough mainly because UO lets me really play my character, whereas AC and the like artificially limit my choices in order to try to eliminate "griefing." Of course, all it really does it provide griefers a consequence-free environment.

In a perfect world, the game service provider would only eliminate the cheaters, and let me take care of the griefers "in game." I am still waiting for the perfect online fantasy RPG. I have high hopes for Middle Earth, but something tells me they aren't gonna let my character "Telumhatar" riddle "A$$NUGG3+" with arrows just on general principle.