World of Warcraft Launches

The last major MMOG launch of the year hits retail stores today. World of Warcraft finally goes live after years of debate, development, and a more than six month Beta test. The usual suspects have details on the game, with Gamespot already having details on upcoming content and Gamespy laying out personal experiences from the test and interviews with the developers.

Comments

Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me, or does $15/month seem WAY out of proportion for something like this? I could see paying $15/year, maybe. But this is almost as much as I pay every month for my broadbant Internet access, which is FAR more useful.

Re:Expensive?

[badmammajamma]

Maybe you should check the prices for other MMOs before you make such statements...

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's way out of line. To justify that, I would need to spend every weekend playing it. I need to spend more time on games like I need a hole in the head.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

15$ a month for countless hours of entertainment? It's cheap as it gets. Equals about 2.5 meals at McDonalds, 2 trips to the movies (some places not even that).

Since I played mainly MMOG, I saved nice amounts of money on single player games. I used to buy one or two single player games a month, now, not one. Savings: 100$ bucks. Take out 15 from it for $MMOG and I still have 85$ left over.

Re:Expensive?

[-kertrats-]

That's about the same as every other MMO out there [sans crap like Runescape]

Re:Expensive?

[stratjakt]

Can one not consider them all overly expensive?

Especially when you fork out 60 bucks for the game in the first place.

Why can MSFT pull off XBox Live for 50 bucks a year, but the MMOG guys can't do it for much less than 20 bucks a month?

XBL no doubt sucks more bandwidth and does a shitload of backend work.

Re:Expensive?

[stratjakt]

Countless hours?

I can count them easily. In a given 30 day month, I'll probably get about 3 hours to sit and play games.

15 bucks a month /3 hours of playing = 5 dollars an hour, which is the going rate your mom charges.

So, you're right. WoW is really cheap, as cheap as your mom.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but XBox Live games are played peer-to-peer, correct? Then the bandwidth requirements for a MMORPG would be much greater than the Live service, thus justifying the higher price.

Re:Expensive?

[Rahga]

Well, that's after you pay $50 for the game + box + first month free trail subscription.

Hrm, "free"... Gee, Blizzard marketing department, thanks for offering us a free month of game play in exchange for buying a $50 game that is useless without that subscription.

Ugh. Between creepy marketing like that and everyone else jumping over to a Half-Life 2, both publiched by a company that still sells Counter-Strike for $30 when they've disabled the ability to play it at all (without installing a DRM platform under a different license, of course).... I'm really just getting ticked off. I'm probably alone in saving my money and avoiding both of those games, though.

For now, I think I'll stick to working on games that are free for everyone and occasionally play UT2004 and a few budget titles without these restrictive licenses.

Re:Expensive?

[Cat_Byte]

I have always thought if they were going to charge per month the game should be free. If you buy a game for $50 to have the CD it should have $50 free access to the game or the option to download it for free and connect for a monthly rate. I have never bought an online game because of this. Why charge me $50 then a monthly fee to play it? If I can't play it in single player mode, why charge single player game prices?

Re:Expensive?

[Hinhule]

180$/year.. for a hobby, I would say that's pretty cheap.

When I am doing paintball.. I can burn that amount balls alone over a weekend, and that's just playing not wasting balls shooting random stuff.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you do rock. Wish I had some points for ya!

Re:Expensive?

[badboy_tw2002]

XBL only provides matchmaking services, friends lists, stats, messaging, etc. It does no actual game hosting unless publishers pay extra, and so far I don't think any have. Its bandwidth costs would probably be comparable to Gamespy's or AIM (though with far less users but in a more secure environment). You average MMOG provides continuous bandwidth during gameplay, patching, user interaction, and huge database services tracking monster, players, levels, etc. I doubt it costs that much to play, but the fact is that people are willing to pay the price, and they seem fine with the user base that the costs provide. If they don't get enough people they'll surely lower the costs, and if demand is high enough they'll probably raise them.

Re:Expensive?

[fireduck]

I wonder... Valve wants to distribute through steam because they make more profit. They're forced to also do retail because they have publishing agreements with Vivendi. I wonder if part of the upfront cost in buying the retail box for a MMORPG isn't due publisher demands? If Blizzard were free of Vivendi, could they release the client for free or at a markedly lower price?

Re:Expensive?

[badmammajamma]

Apparently you have no idea what kind of infrastructure is involved with a MMO. Paying $50 just covers the cost of making the game (which takes significantly longer than any other game type). The monthly fees go to very expensive bandwidth, many server farms (EQ has well over a thousand servers), huge maintenance costs, and the continual costs of constantly upgrading the game (which all MMO players expect). Sorry, but none of this shit is free.

Re:Expensive?

[LilGuy]

No you gotta take out $50 to buy it (no idea why) PLUS $15 so you can play it. Which makes it about a $35 'savings'. Not to mention every month there is at LEAST 1 new expansion you'll have to buy to be able to compete with everyone, so that's another $30 - $40. Now you're in the hole. Not only that, but you've spent so damn much money on it, you figure you better use every waking hour you have on it, and even some hours you should be sleeping or possibly socializing. Welcome to the world of a sheeple.
You've been so suckered by the game company that you're little more than a virtual crack addict, throwing money at them constantly to keep your virtual crack in good supply. Notice how it doesn't start out like that, but YOU talk yourself into becoming that way, with a little nudge from the game company...

Its a bit scary if you ask me.

Re:Expensive?

[SilentChris]

"Why can MSFT pull off XBox Live for 50 bucks a year, but the MMOG guys can't do it for much less than 20 bucks a month?

XBL no doubt sucks more bandwidth and does a shitload of backend work."

Xbox Live has very few dedicated servers. Most of what Live does is matchmaking (the Xboxes themselves host the games).

MMORPGs need to have a ton of dedicated servers, run by a full-time networking team, on ALL the time. When servers are down on an MMORPG, there's no game, period.

Re:Expensive?

[Senzei]

In general they seem to do a 1-2 free month subscription with game purchase. When I decided to give planetside more of a go than the seven days they hand out for free on occassion it was only ~10 dollars, so I got a month for less than the normal price. Generally that is the exception, but they always give something with the purchase.

Re:Expensive?

[mobets]

My guess is that the Xbox live is funded by people buying a large number of different games. The cost beyond the $50 per year is included in every game you buy. This however is only bough once, then played for years. Also, once a title is relieced for Xbox, developement on it pretty much stops. This on the other hand will be under constant development for as long as people will pay. They will be creating new content and tweeking existing adventures and the like.

Re:Expensive?

[darkwing_bmf]

Whenever I see something like this, I always think back to when I played multi-player MechWarrior (or whatever the equivalent name of it was) on the GEnie network. They charged several dollars PER HOUR. People that complain about $15/month crack me up.

Re:Expensive?

[(54)T-Dub]

Not to mention the multiple server farms and extensive updates to the game. I think that if you buy a $60 MMO then you should get the first 60/15 = 4 months free. Or free download with a 4 month contract. Either way. Then I might consider it. But $60 and a 1 month trial is BS. I will not pay that much to try a game out for 30 days. I also feel that a 7-day trial (with rollover of course) would make a lot of sense.

Re:Expensive?

[Jorrit]

I'm going to make a little bit of promotion here. Go to http://www.planeshift.it . This is a free MMORPG in development. In the current released version the game is really pre-alpha. You cannot do much except walk around in a 3D world, chat, solve a few simple quests and collect crystals. But in the next version that is going to be released soon (hopefully in less then a month now) there will be magic, monsters, trading, crafting, ... PlaneShift really focuses on the RPG aspects.

PlaneShift is 100% free. You just download the game for nothing and there is no monthly subscription fee. The source is available too (GPL).

Greetings,

Re:Expensive?

[twbecker]

Why can MSFT pull off XBox Live for 50 bucks a year, but the MMOG guys can't do it for much less than 20 bucks a month?

Because Microsoft doesn't need to make a profit from it maybe? The whole Xbox business unit leaks money like a sieve, but they don't care because they're making headway into the industry. Game companies don't have such luxuries.

Re:Expensive?

[Ruprecht the Monkeyb]

A) You're paying $50, but that's retail. The company has to get the game in the hands of the players, and electronic distriubtion isn't (quite) here yet (the install for EQII came on 2 DVDs and was 6-7GB). So it has to go through the retail chain, and everybody along the way has to make money off of the transaction.

B) First-month attrition is fairly large. This makes it non-cost-effective to distribute boxed copies for free in anticipation of recouping the expense in subscription fees.

C) 'I shouldn't have to pay to buy it and then pay per month' is a specious argument against playing these games. Either you feel you get your money's worth in entertainment value, or not. How the expense is chunked is irrelevant. If you anticipate not liking the game enough to justify the initial expense, wait several months and most games have 7 or 14 day trials available for download.

D) From an accounting standpoint, you want the inital investment in development recovered as quickly as possible, and the monthly fees to cover overhead, future development, and profit.

Re:Expensive?

[stratjakt]

Yes, I know exactly what kind of infrastructure is involved.

I also know how fat game publishers like their profit margins to be.

It's expensive, sure, but not ($60 + ($15 x months)) x (1 million subscribers) expensive.

Maybe I'm wrong, and if I am, I really want to see this mammoth supercomputer that costs 15 million a month to operate.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee... what MMOG have you been playing? First $49.99 usually includes one month of play... at least with WOW, EQ, CoH, AC2, AC1, DAoC...
Second, the most expansions I've seen that you had to pay for has been about 2 per year... Hmmm 29.99x2= 59.98+ tax. 2 games per month is about 100. Oh well.. And let's not forget WoW has 6-month option for $77.94 which is 12.99/month. Hey I am going to spend less than $85 a month

Re:Expensive?

[Minwee]

So, um, don't play.

How hard a decision can that be?

Re:Expensive?

[SilentChris]

*Shrug* It's all about how much value you think an entertainment source has. Personally, I'd gladly pay a few extra bucks for some rich gameplay drawn by professional artists than play another cheap Tetris clone on Gnome.

Considering, also, that Blizzard tends to support their games for a long, LONG time (you can still play WarCraft II on Battle.net) I think it's a fair price.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is terrible math. I dont play MMOGs but you dont have to rebuy the game every month and expansions dont come out every month. Redo your math and make sure you hire an accountant to do your budgeting for you in the future.

Re:Expensive?

[SlightlyMadman]

The publishers and investors demand it. After pumping millions of dollars into the incredibly long development process, they want a big chunk of change right away.

The basic model of MMOG income is that the box sales should pay for the development of the game, and the monthly fee pays for operating costs and future development, and what's left is profit.

Re:Expensive?

[Tooxs]

Yea, I love how they use the word free.

If you have to buy one thing to get another, IT'S NOT FREE, IT'S INCLUDED.

Re:Expensive?

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

I remember playing Neverwinter Nights (not the current one, but the original gold-box SSI game) on AOL and paying $5 an hour to play. That was back when you could buy a gold-box game for $20-25 - and I was only making something like $10.25 per hour at the time... I got over that real quick. Moved to Shadows of Yserbius on The Sierra Network and got something outrageous like 60 hours of game play for only $90 per month...

$15 a month doesn't even faze me anymore...

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually... this is pretty much what all of the MMORPGs since EQ have done in terms of marketing and pricing... with varying monthly fees.

This is an industry standard practice.

Re:Expensive?

[insensitive claude]

A long time, in this instance, means 30 days. Each time I pay, I get to play for 30 days. So if I still want to play after a couple of years, I'll have paid $360 for a game that is only good for 30 days.

Re:Expensive?

[Cat_Byte]

I agree but I'm not one of those people who have countless hours to spend building up a character so $15/month compared to my $29 for DSL isn't really a good deal. I bet they could get a whole new crowd coming in if they offered something like $5/month for...say....30 hrs of play per month (about 1 hr per day). I would go for that. Otherwise my hr per day is going to be $15/month to go around whacking bats and bunnies for a couple of months. That is why I quit EQ during beta and never bought it.

Re:Expensive?

[Donjo]

I concur. I used to spend atleast 100 a month on games before I started playing SWG (yea yea, love it or hate it). Ever since then I buy maybe 5 PC games a year (at their reduced prices, not when they come out). Even with my 2 accounts, paying 30 dollars a month, I am saving money.

Re:Expensive?

[kfg]

Equals about 2.5 meals at McDonalds

Yeah, right. Like I'd do that in the first place.

2 trips to the movies

Four bucks. In a real theater. With comfortable seats. Dumpster-O-Popcorn, a buck fifty.

Of course DVD "rentals" are "free".

I saved nice amounts of money on single player games. I used to buy one or two single player games a month, now, not one.

I found a few games five or six years ago that entertainingly offer infinite replay value and have strong communities that keep them up to date. One of them supports internet play with a direct connection so I'm not even dependant on company servers for that one.

I don't have time to buy new games. I'm too busy having fun.

Look, if it's worth it to you I'm not going to gainsay that. It's your money. I honestly don't care if you burn it and I'm not trying to say that you should spend your money as I spend mine. Spend it as you will, but there are those of us who can stretch a dollar a long, long way, and have just as much, or even more fun out of it.

It may look "cheap as it gets" to you, but that doesn't stop it from looking damned expensive to us, because it actually gets a damned sight cheaper.

KFG

Re:Expensive?

[SilentChris]

Uh, no. What kind of match is that? If you play for one month a couple of years from now, you'll pay $15. They have to pay for the servers somehow.

Re:Expensive?

[mzipay]

but by the same token, maybe you should consider one's relative interest in playing a MMO game before you make such counter-statements.

i agree with the grandparent, not because i think it is overly expensive in and of itself, but because i have very little interest in online gaming.

i play games as an escape, so the idea of joining a community in order to play a game seems somewhat counterintuitive to me. i certainly am interested in some of the titles out there, but i find the cost prohibitive. it's not worth it to me to invest "just" $15/mo because the whole concept is iffy at best (to me).

as an aside, comparing a relatively low $15/mo fee to a $50 new game price tag is meaningless to me (and others, i suspect) because i rarely purchase new games anyway. i buy almost every title used, and rarely pay more than $15-$20. to give a sepcific frame of reference, i have purchased a brand new $50+ game exactly ONCE in the last two years.

so from my perspective, i could spend $15/mo on the SAME game, or i could spend $15/mo for a new game EVERY month and enjoy an ever-increasing game library. i happen to choose the latter, just as many others happen to choose the former.

(this is just my personal perspective, so please step away from the flamethrowers)

Re:Expensive?

[RollingThunder]

Nope, not at all. There's servers to maintain and ongoing bugfixes to deliver.

I pay $12.99/month for WW2Online. $15/mo is standard for MMORPG's.

That $15/month turns into a a fraction of a dollar per hour. I defy you to find any type of for-pay entertainment that's cheaper per-hour.

Re:Expensive?

[WPIDalamar]

How much blizzard charges has very little to do with their costs. The game will cost consumers whatever the market will bear.

If you were running a game and 1000 people will play at $15 and 3000 will play at $5, which one would you pick?

Re:Expensive?

[badmammajamma]

Of course it doesn't cost 15 mil to operate, but the ONLY reason to make an MMO is big profits. The risks for creating an MMO are gigantic compared to other games. You're talking about companies spending 10 - 20 million dollars to develop the thing and they better pray they got it right or it's all down the drain. Building an FPS is much cheaper. MMOs are an entirely different business model for a game company and they're scared shitless whenever they do it.

Re:Expensive?

[FictionPimp]

I've estimated that I've spent almost 800 per account playing EQ (I had 2 accounts). I used to justify it by saying "Well, when i'm playing EQ, I dont buy other games, so its cheap entertianment". But after looking at my finacial history that is not true. I buy about 2 video games a month. At 40.00 (looks like this will go up, both doom 3 and HL2 were 55.00) a game, thats 960.00 a year on video games + 800 * 2 = 2560 a year (not including tax) on games. Thats a down payment on a car, or a new guitar. Hell, the intrest that would of saved me on my morgage alone.

I've made a pact with my soon to be wife. After the first of the year, I will only have a budget for gaming of 1 video game a month, with no option to save up (I.E. If I dont buy a game this month, I dont get 2 next month.) I'm actually hoping to get this down to 1 videogame every 2 months, but thats wishful thinking (although possible if I can get into more betas). I'll put this money back into more tangable things like my savings and my portfolio. Our at least buy toys with more long term investment (guitars and such). I have even looked at going outside for a change (gasp!).

Now if I could only stop playing video games so often, I could pick up more side work, maybe bring in more then 1-2 k extra a month.

Re:Expensive?

[Jugalator]

Yeah, well, this is why I'm probably just going to get Guild Wars instead. No monthly fees, and while it's not a true MMORPG, it's not a true kind of anything else either, but a new kind of genre, or maybe could call it a mix of genres -- MMORPG's and Action RPG's / PvP games.

The focus on the game is to get rid of the grinding aspects in MMORPG's too. I wonder if those parts are really just there for you to stick with their games for a longer time. :-P

Re:Expensive?

[NaugaHunter]

compared to my $29 for DSL isn't really a good deal.

Umm... unless you buy the DSL only for playing WoW, it's pretty much pointless to include it as a cost for playing. That's like including the cost of your car every time you budget for going to a movie.

Re:Expensive?

[bughunter]

And how much does the average gamer pay for Cable/Satellite/PVR subscriptions? The Blizzard Marketing Department has a pretty good idea.

And they also know that if you subscribe to WoW, then you won't be using your TV much! From what I've seen in the Beta Test, it's going to prove at least as addictive as the old MUDs/MUSHes were to us old-schoolers.

(My wife is gonna be so pissed.)

Re:Expensive?

[DigiShaman]

Lets not forget the DMs required to add content to the game and provide player support. I'm very surprised that Diablo 1 and 2 offered free online relms. So if Blizzard is going to charge for WOW, I can only imagine it will be top-notch service and entertainment. Time will tell of course, but I'll give it some faith based on Blizzards attention to quality.

BTW, I just got WOW Special Edition (thank you FedEx) today. But I think I made a mistake in not getting a large supply of NoDoze pills and coffee....damn.

Re:Expensive?

[goldspider]

I briefly tried the Planeshift alpha, and frankly wasn't very impressed.

Now I understand that it was an alpha and all, but I didn't see much potential for variety or inspiring gameplay, or for that matter, many people playing it.

You can't have a very successful MMORPG if you don't have enough people playing it.

Re:Expensive?

[HybridJeff]

Just think of it this way. If you're going to play it for say (30 hours) as your example suggested. That means you're paying $0.50 an hour. That doesnt seem like alot from an entertainment point of view (ever paid $10 for a 90 minute bad movie?). Play for 15 hours, 10 even? Thats still not so unreasonable.

That aside, you do get a month free with purchase, and its up to you to justify it.

Re:Expensive?

[bughunter]

Aye... I was playing (addicted to, actually) Gemstone III via AOL back then too, the year before AOL went flat rate. (1997?) Eight to twelve hours a day... and twenty a day on weekends... added up real quick.

My monthly Gemstone bill regularly ran to $400.

And when AOL went flat rate, I couldn't connect. Quit cold turkey.

$15/month is, what... five hours of AOL hourly rate? That wouldn't even have paid for a full evening of Gemstone back in the previous century...

Re:Expensive?

[shannara256]

> 15$ a month
Plus about $50 for the first month.

> for countless hours of entertainment?
Let's be super optimistic, and say 720 hours (that is, 30 days). Yay, less than a penny an hour. But it's not the quantity that matters, it's the quality. What do you do when the game goes down? Or when your internet connection goes down?

Or, and this is the most important one, what do you do when the company decides not to run the game anymore and shuts it down? Then you're left with a worthless box with CDs, maybe a manual, and if you're lucky a map or some other goody, and you're out $50 + n * $15. As opposed to games that you might have bought 12 years ago and still play just fine.

> It's cheap as it gets.
> Equals about 2.5 meals at McDonalds,
$6 for a meal at McDonald's? Ugh

> 2 trips to the movies (some places not even that).
Putting something which is expensive in terms of something else that is expensive doesn't say much. Or are you saying that $7.50 for two hours is reasonable?

Re:Expensive?

[Jorrit]

The current release is really only a tech demo to have us test some of the technologies we use in the game. It is only the next release that will feature real RPG features. But still the next release will also be alpha/beta so it is still not the full game.

Greetings,

Re:Expensive?

[black6host]

I quite sure that much market research has been done to determine the magic number that people will easily part with monthly. Why do you see so many items on TV for only $19.95? Because people will spend that without thinking. If they could charge $29.95 they would. And, since people will pay $19.95 why charge less? Same goes with game pricing. They've found a sweet spot that makes it profitable in terms of number of buyers that will pay the price asked. Given the number of responses justifying the cost by comparing the monthly pricing versus number of movies, dinners, etc that could be bought instead it appears they've done their homework well.

Re:Expensive?

[blighter]

I don't think he was adding the two, he was comparing the two.

I believe he was making the point that this would cost half as much as he pays for broadband and would be significantly less than half as useful. Thus: not an attractive price for him.

Re:Expensive?

[VGPowerlord]

Well, that's after you pay $50 for the game + box + first month free trail subscription.

Hrm, "free"... Gee, Blizzard marketing department, thanks for offering us a free month of game play in exchange for buying a $50 game that is useless without that subscription.

Yes, that's how marketing works for an MMORPG. The thing you pay for in the box is the work that went into developing the game itself, reimbursing the company for the server hardware, reimbursing the company for the optical line installation (or co-location setup costs), and knowing Blizzard's heavy Microsoft strategy: OS licenses and database server licenses. The amount you pay per month is goes to the employees needed to maintain the server and the money needed to pay for the optical lines (or co-location monthly fees).

The free first month is really deceptive marketing: the first month's fee has already been figured into the product price.

Ugh. Between creepy marketing like that and everyone else jumping over to a Half-Life 2, both publiched by a company that still sells Counter-Strike for $30 when they've disabled the ability to play it at all (without installing a DRM platform under a different license, of course).... I'm really just getting ticked off. I'm probably alone in saving my money and avoiding both of those games, though.

For now, I think I'll stick to working on games that are free for everyone and occasionally play UT2004 and a few budget titles without these restrictive licenses.

I don't agree with the way Valve (yes, I'm blaming Valve here, not Vivendi) is handling Half-Life 2 registrations. However, they are correct in that piracy is rampant. I still don't play on getting HL2, though.

As for game development, it's a fact of life that 3D games take more time and money to create than 2D games. It's a fact of life that the bigger the game, the more resources it takes to develop. The first M in MMORPG stands for Massive for a reason: the game world is extremely large. Given these, it really isn't surprising that MMORPGs are expensive when they first come out.

On the flip side, most computer games cost the same amount up front as WoW does, so you're either paying less for WoW itself, or the first month really is free...

Re:Expensive?

[Pinkoir]

I know you're trying to be funny but I'll take your commetns as straight. If you only have 3 hours a month to play games then why the hell would you play any MMORPG even if was free/free? There's no point. Just play some solitare and go about your obviously full life.

The vast majority of people who play MMORPGs spend at least a few hours a week on them. Even a weekend-only player would spend 5 hours total playing. Any less than that and there is no point as you'll have forgotten what the hell was going on in between sessions!. At 5 hours a week you get 20 hours a month and that makes the monthly fee less than a buck an hour (Grandparent's mom aside). Tell me what entertainment you can get at a buck an hour these days. And for that trifling fee you get access to a continually evolving game as many MMORPGs have free expansions (EVE launches a huge one today...w00t). Frankly I just can't understand the "I don't wanna pay a monthly fee" argument coming from any but the most light-weight players.

MMORPGs cost money to develop that's the money that you spend to buy the game. MMORPGs cost money to run (server farms, routers, bandwidth bills and such) which is part of the monthly fee and they cost money to evolve which is the other part. Unless of course you'd rather have the software developers be payed in cheese-doodles and AOL CDs and the game run on hard-ware looted from abandoned Nortel facilities.

-Pinkoir

Re:Expensive?

[goldspider]

I would certainly be willing to give it another try upon its next release. I have no doubt that the features and content will make Planeshift more impressive, but how do you plan on attracting people away from the new MMORPGs like WoW and EQ2?

I gotta give you credit for what you've done so far, so please don't take my above comments as a criticism of your work. I'm just not sure how a group such as yourselves, doing this (presumably) in your free time can compete for players with juggernauts like SoE and Blizzard.

Re:Expensive?

[jlaxson]

No, you don't remember correctly. Games are organized via XBL, but the actual in-game data is hosted "peer-to-peer" (i quote that because it's not strictly p2p. One xbox is in host mode and the others talk to it).

Have you ever noticed, playing on XBL, every once in a while you'll get a blue screen (i tend to die during these, so fitting) with a message that says "Connecting to Session", then "Setting Up Game"? This is when the host box drops out (or perhaps is voted to quit hosting because of lag) and all the boxes get together, decide on a new host, and sync up game data.

There's no reason XBL couldn't act like a firewall broker (ie. ultrapeer mode), but trust me, XBL does not host the Halo 2 games.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I have a freind that buys a new $50 game every other month. I buy a new $50 MMORPG every couple years and pay ~$15/mo. I figure I am still coming out ahead.

Re:Expensive?

[Jorrit]

Do we have to attract people away from those MMORPG? There is room for more then one MMORPG in the world. Also PlaneShift will be completely free. I suppose that for many people that are not prepared to play such high amounts for MMORPG games (like me) that is a compelling reason to switch.

You talk about 'competition'. But we don't earn any money from PlaneShift. So there is no real competition.

Greetings,

Re:Expensive?

[222]

If you had ever enjoyed a game of this nature, you would understand that the cost of the game, the monthly fee, and any expansions are a BARGAIN. WoW is the best / most fun mmo ive ever played, and well worth the costs incured. If you're having trouble justifying the cost of the game, dont play.... as for me, ill be having a blast (and spending much less than i would at the bar or the movies).

Re:Expensive?

[Cat_Byte]

Thanks. Yes I was comparing the two.

I would rather subscribe to NetFlix and get more hours of entertainment for my buck ;)

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've made a pact with my soon to be wife. After the first of the year, I will only have a budget for gaming of 1 video game a month, with no option to save up (I.E. If I dont buy a game this month, I dont get 2 next month.)

Dont worry, at that rate, your wife will leave you for the pool guy after about 4 videogames. You'll then need to spend your newly saved cash on a good lawyer.

Re:Expensive?

[jwsd]

Now if I could only stop playing video games so often, I could pick up more side work, maybe bring in more then 1-2 k extra a month.
But you are getting married, right? I am afraid you'll have to cut back on your video games and you won't have extra bandwidth for more side work.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

A crime called dumping?

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no idea what you are talking about. Someone's xbox is hosting every game you play, run tcpdump sometime. It works through NAT and firewalls because it checks to see whether or not you are able to connect back and host.

Re:Expensive?

[CRiMSON]

It's called updated content. It costs a lot of money to keep a tea of developers adding content/Server up and running/Database back ends. It's not like they let joe blow run his very own WoW server. Can't handle $15/month, don't play. End of story. $15 is lunch ain't a big deal.

Re:Expensive?

[timts]

I have tried the open alpha and one closed beta for guildwars.com, it's pretty good but I am still debating whether I will buy the actual game when it's out next feburary. there are so many beta tests that's almost exactly the same as the released game you can try, why pay for it when you can just try them for free?

I know it's very addictive for many people to play everquest II and other MMORPG, but I dont have enough time just to play one game. I bought Half-life2 and I have xbox/ps2, there are so many nice single player games I'd like to play.

I wonder if they can let people pay by hour, instead of pay by month, since I might not devote enough time per month to justify the cost but I'd like to pay the amount I use. :D

Re:Expensive?

[flibuste]

The risks for creating an MMO are gigantic compared

It's not as "gigantic" a risk as you state. No company will take a "gigantic" risk.

Also, considering Blizzard past history of good quality games, it's very doubtful that marketers would ever consider WOW a "risk" (because Blizzard does make incredibly good games ALL the time.)

you're talking about companies spending 10 - 20 million dollars to develop the thing

Well..your argument is not good enough, Half-life2 costed 40M$ and the retail price is roughly the same as WOW, with no other extra cost. Let's face it: Blizzard did a great business move since

• They have a player base that WILL buy WOW no matter the cost
• They WILL be successful since they always are because this company is serious about creating good quality stuff and is known for that
• They already had the expertise in-house to create WOW

So basically, they are going to make more profit then ever just by capitalizing on their experience.

And guys, I hate business managers, but THAT is a business that is run by clever people!

Re:Expensive?

[stanmann]

Nice, but the actual numbers are more like 1200 at $12 vs 2200 at $4.

Re:Expensive?

[NaugaHunter]

I hope you included the price of your DVD player, your TV, and your electric bill in that calculation. :)

Re:Expensive?

[meatspray]

Not to meantion content upgrades, 24x7 in game support, server upgrades as necessary. You have to consider they're providing more of an online service/community like *shudder* AOL than just a game.

When ID was done with Doom3 they released some patches perhaps kept an eye on it, but here able to move on with their lives. Blizzard will be heavily working on/supporting WoW for years to come assuming it becomes as popular as Dark Age of Camelot / EverQuest. (yeah it's not like it'll catch up to EQ)

I agree that's still entirely too much to pay for a subscription, but they have a limited fanbase and they're going to milk them for all they can.

Re:Expensive?

[Dirtside]

Is it just me, or does $15/month seem WAY out of proportion for something like this? I could see paying $15/year, maybe. But this is almost as much as I pay every month for my broadbant Internet access, which is FAR more useful.

Let's say you paid $15 for 40 hours of gameplay that month. (That's way below average for MMOG players.) You're paying about 38 cents an hour to play. Compare to movies (3-5 DOLLARS per hour), concerts or sporting events (5-100 DOLLARS per hour), heck, even buying a cheap paperback for six bucks and reading it for six hours is still a dollar an hour.

Enjoyment being equal, seems like the MMO is quite a good deal. Even if you take the initial purchase price into account ($50, in this case), $65 for 40 hours is $1.63 an hour, which is still cheaper than a movie.

Yes, I realize you have to have a computer and an internet connection, but if you already had those, then their cost is sunk and can be ignored when deciding what to do with your entertainment dollars. Stop acting like it's ridiculously expensive to play an MMOG.

Re:Expensive?

[sanityimp]

Xbox live can pull off reduced prices because the game developers due all the work developing the servers, theyere just hosting them, and even there how much content gets updated over time?

compare that to how oftem a mmorpg gets updated with new data. they keep adding more content to retain players. so $15/month is justified.

plust as said below the upfront charge is to pay for all the work they did to get to the point where users can play. its NOT an easy task. i don't here you bitcha botu forking $50 for halo and then $5/month to play it online.

Re:Expensive?

[Surt]

Be sure to remember as you're doing this to retain _some_ fun in your life. If games aren't the best fun for $ deal for you, then by all means spend your money elsewhere. Generally I find games are an excellent entertainment value cost wise. Particularly compared to tv/movies.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then MMOs aren't for you.

Duh.

Re:Expensive?

[CRiMSON]

Good, stay with gnome-games (less idiots begging for shit in my games).

To all the idiots crying but but in 10 years if they turn steam off your fucked. Oh fucking well. in 10 years people will be saying WTF is half-life2!? oh that game, why not just play half-life 15: The moron expansion.

People love to cry ohh gnoes it's not free!! Free the beer, Free the speech. Everything should be free. Wrong asshole, it's called making money, you don't like it, go live in the fucking woods with RMS (I hear he has a wonderful guide to getting laid you should read up).

Have fun with your free beer (generally tastes like shit as the person who made it usually doesn't know how) and your free speech (of course untill you disagree with them then you need to STFU, works both ways asshole).

You keep working on Tetris clone 600,000,000 (it has purple blocks now woot woot!!) Before you start opening your pie hole about how it's a shame they charge money for a product, simple fact you don't like the license, don't fucking play it. Cause right behind you a million other people are willing to buy it, and play it for a couple months before moving onto a new game.

Re:Expensive?

[Dirtside]

2560 a year (not including tax) on games. Thats a down payment on a car, or a new guitar. Hell, the intrest that would of saved me on my morgage alone.

So... do you get $2,560 worth of entertainment a year out of those games? Do you think that you'd have been equally happy if you'd put all that money toward your mortgage instead, and rather than played games, sat around staring at the walls because you'd spent no money on entertainment?

Re:Expensive?

[flibuste]

Trouble with being married is that you cannot play as much as you used to.

I found myself playing less than 50% of the time I used to play games.

Take that as a figure for your budget, and you get your one game a month ;-)

But believe me..after marriage..budget is not the issue when it comes to video games ;-)

Re:Expensive?

[Meagermanx]

I think it would be a good idea to charge for the box/CD, and then charge maintenance. See, the content they develop they sell as expansion packs, so it doesn't make any sense that I should have to pay for that. I can see paying for server maintenance, seeing as that's the only way to go. I also understand the argument that $15 a month is a rather inexpensive price, and one I could see paying if that's what it took to keep their servers up, but the majority of the money you spend is just going to the fat cats at SOE. They are just being greedy.

Re:Expensive?

[johnnliu]

I think $15/month is the norm in MMPOG industry.

Have you ever paid for any subscription based contents? I can understand how you can make that kind of comment if you haven't.

Anyway, I've paid for things much less than WOW (Lineage 2, have I mentioned I hate NCSoft?), I think if any MMPOG is worth it, it'd be WOW. If I don't eat out as much, $15 is quite easy. Besides, I hardly spend money on PC games anymore.

Re:Expensive?

[MaineCoon]

By the time it's gone through retail it's been marked up about 100% (generally the amount the publisher sees is about $25 to $30).

So, consider it as $15 for your first month, $10 to $15 for the CDs and starting the account, and $20 to $25 to supporting the retailer you bought from.

Re:Expensive?

[CRiMSON]

Wrong fucktard. You cancel. in 2 years you wanna play you reactivate your toon.

Re:Expensive?

[fair_n_hite_451]

Actually, THIS portion of Blizzard's fan base won't be buying into WoW because of the monthly fee structure.

Yes, I love their games. Diablo rocks hard, and I play it almost every day.

But, I can only justify that on a "one time cost vs. ongoing enjoyment" basis.

MMO's ARE a new business model as others have suggested, just not one that's got where it needs to be to attract my $$$ yet.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if he's in the first couple of years of his mortgage, that $2560 spread out over a year could take four or five years off the total length. Say he's paying $2,000/mo then he's going to have an extra $96,000 to spend in his lifetime. That's college tuition for his kid right there. Sounds like a fucking good idea to me. Hell, starting around age 55 he could spend a couple of weeks in Europe every year for the rest of his life.

Jesus, $2500 a year is likely triple most people's annual entertainment budgets. At least it should be. You can sure do a lot without having to dump $200/mo.

Re:Expensive?

[Have Blue]

That's not a general XBL feature- Only Halo 2 can migrate hosting like that (AFAIK).

Re:Expensive?

[xgamer04]

I know that this isn't the same quality as WoW, but this game seems to be publisher-free, and they offer a free downloadable client with a (sort of restricted) free account.

Re:Expensive?

[Feanturi]

Can one not consider them all overly expensive?

Especially when you fork out 60 bucks for the game in the first place.

This is not true of all MMO's either. Two of the ones I play (Eve and A Tale in the Desert) get you into the game with a free download of the client, including free trial play. ATitD doesn't even make you register or give cc info, you just start playing for the free 24 hours they give. Then just plug in your card number (right inside the client, no website visit) when you want to start subscribing. Eve is currently undergoing a massive expansion, which is also free (unlike SWG's Jump to Lightspeed), you just keep up your monthly subscription and keep playing, the expansion is really just a massive patch to the game I am already paying for.

Re:Expensive?

[xgamer04]

I tried Guild Wars out over the "open" weekend, and it struck me as sort of a traditional (pen & paper) RPG that was stuck into a computer world. It was very different, and very cool.

Re:Expensive?

[asliarun]

But then, if a movie ticket costed you, say $1000, you would be justified in saying that your movie ticket costs almost as much as the car that you drove to see it. Sometimes, comparing apples and oranges makes sense if they're priced right ;-)

Re:Expensive?

[glowimperial]

$15 dollars a month is bupkis for quality entertainment. I live in Los Angeles and a movie costs between $10 -$14 dollars, parking anywhere costs $3-$5. When I buy into a MMO, I want to know that the developer is going to have adequate funding to not only host and support the game, but to be constantly adding content, patching errors, creating new art and code, etc... We have discussed this issue in numerous other threads, coming largely to the conclusion that most of that $15 per month goes to hosting and ongoing development/maintinence costs.

Re:Expensive?

[Jason1729]

You're right it is insanely expensive for what you get, but if you notice the other responses on the thread, they aren't charging more than the market will bear. If people are willing to pay it, you can't fault the company for charging it :)

Re:Expensive?

[supabeast!]

It depends on the quality of service one wants. I don't mind paying it because, given the experiences I had during the beta, Blizzard's servers work much better than games in the $9-$13 range. I quit playing EQ because I got sick of paying for servers that crashed regularly and were unavailable during peak times. My experience with the WoW beta suggests that Blizzard was tooling things to make sure that those things don't happen, and assuming that it stays that way I'm cool with it.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I remember, MS was taking a loss on the Xbox in order to gain marketshare.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to a movie recently?
Compare Entertainment Hours per Dollar...

Re:Expensive?

[MaineCoon]

The store you buy from is taking about half of whatever you paid for that game (in this case, probably about $30-35).

Take the cost of stamping CDs and boxing and shipping them out... of the amount of that $60 you paid that the company will see, your first month's cost ends up being much closer to the normal monthly fee than it does to what you paid.

And honestly, it's sort of like a Tivo - which many people here seem to love. Pay for the device (in this case, the game), then for the service. You can't use your Tivo without paying the extra monthly fee. Sure, they offer a lifetime subscription, but it amounts to paying for 2 1/2 years up front on a device with a 90 day warranty.

Re:Expensive?

[tsalem]

What about Guild Wars? According to their FAQ, there will be no monthly fee, and I believe the devlopers are composed of ex-Blizzard members.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you, me and the GP are agreed: you and the million other sheep go your way and get duly fleeced while me and the GP will enjoy games without paying with our cash or our rights. Everybody's happy :-)

BTW, you probably didn't want to hear this but camping in the woods is one of the coolest hobbies you can take up. The graphics are truely stunning and the gameplay is sooo realistic ;-)

Re:Expensive?

[Cromac]

Many MMORPG players consider someone who "only" spends 4 hours / day on these games to be a casual player. The hard core types will easily spend 8-10 hours, or more, every single day playing them.

Re:Expensive?

[rk]

Apparently you have no idea what kind of infrastructure is involved with a MMO.

And as a customer, he has no need to be. He's just specifying the conditions under which he will part with his money to play these games. If nobody can meet his conditions and make a profit, then he doesn't buy the games and they don't get his business.

I'd be willing to bet all of us are ignorant about the infrastructure involved in many (and maybe even most) of the things we purchase. That doesn't disqualify us from making individual decisions about what we consent to buy. If I decide that something is uneconomical for me to indulge in, giving me a detailed accounting of why it is as expensive as it is may be informative, but doesn't really change my balance sheet at all. This is the very basis of the free market, and it is a good thing.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me what entertainment you can get at a buck an hour these days

Sex .. if you don't have to find the great-grandparent's mom? Condoms are under a buck.

Re:Expensive?

[CRiMSON]

Sheep who is too corwardly to post with his real name huh?

Either way, I do what I want, play the games I want. If you think crying outrage about $15/month to play is going to keep your world free, I suggest you wake up.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed... Vendetta-online is only 9.99 a month

Re:Expensive?

[Scherf]

I found a few games five or six years ago that entertainingly offer infinite replay value and have strong communities that keep them up to date. One of them supports internet play with a direct connection so I'm not even dependant on company servers for that one.

Uh, would you like to tell us what these games are? Just interested.

Re:Expensive?

[Cromac]

Four bucks. In a real theater. With comfortable seats. Dumpster-O-Popcorn, a buck fifty.

Where do you live? Pleasantville? Even the cheap showings are topping $6 / ticket now and the dumpster-O-Popcorn will run $7, plus another $4 or more for about $0.25 worth of soda.

Hows the tech industry in your neck of the woods? Some of us migh want to move there. :)

Re:Expensive?

[Jason1729]

Frankly I just can't understand the "I don't wanna pay a monthly fee" argument coming from any but the most light-weight players.

This "argument" seems to only exist in your head and other appologists for the MMORPG companies.

I haven't seen anyone here or other places complain about the monthly fee expept for the few who say they'd like to play it a little bit but not enough to justify the monthly fee.

What a lot of people have a problem with is paying the $50 up front for what is essentially a piece of client software for a server. It's like an activation fee. The $15/month is easily justified, there is just no excuse for the $50.

All it does is deter people away from signing up and paying them the $15/month that is their bread and butter. When I was in school and moving every 4 months (co-op program), I paid the telephone company's $50 activation fee twice. Then I smartened up and bought a cell-phone, which factoring in the savings of $50 every 4 months was actually cheaper than a landline. This was 10 years ago when cell phones were still pretty expensive. Now I still refuse to have anything to do with the land-line phone company, so they've lost 10 years of revenue from me. They're also one of the two satellite TV carriers in Canada, and it's because of the phone activation fee that my satellite sevice for the last 6 years has been with the other carrier. So far, they have lost about $7,000 in revenue from me because of one stupid activation fee.

Re:Expensive?

[FictionPimp]

We are actually in the 2nd year, and thats exactly how I see it. I dont mind playing less games in exchange for saving tens of thousands of dallors. Its amazing to me how much money I actually spend. When we sat down and figured it out I was a little upset. The kind of money I make vs the savings I had really was unsettling.

I think a lot of people spend too much and then have a hard time by not planning for the future. When we got our house, my future wife asked me what would happen if we got fired. I realized I couldn't afford to pay my car payment, eat, pay rent, and my other bills for more then a month after severance/unemployment runs out.

Thats scary. Thats almost doom 3 scary. Especially for someone who works in the tech industry.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

$4 for about $0.25 worth of soda? That's a bargain, they must give free refills or sth. Here it's $4 for about 5 cents worth of soda (assuming their costs, not grocery store costs).

Anyway, I smuggle food/drink into the theatres. I'll pay their $8 admission fee, but I'm not paying even more than the admission ticket for a small bucket of popcorn and a quart of sugar-water .. er corn syrup water, sugar is too expensive.

If you add the admission, popcorn, and drink, it's cheaper to buy the DVD than for one person to see the movie.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you have a baby, TIME is the major issue. I can afford stacks of games, but, in a cruel twist of fate, many of them have never even been opened because I have so little time to play.

At least I can play my GBA on the bus ride to work.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

To all the idiots crying but but in 10 years if they turn steam off your fucked. Oh fucking well. in 10 years people will be saying WTF is half-life2!? oh that game, why not just play half-life 15: The moron expansion.

Yesterday, I just fired up scummvm and played some monkey island. And I have master system 2 original games that I play from time to time on my console. And when they rust and die and stuff, I'll be able to get the roms and play on my computer.

Some of those games are almost 20 years old, but I can still play them, and sometimes I do, even if it's for sheer nostalgia. Actually, I've found I play old games far more than new ones, and find them more entertaining that 90% of current games.

So, from my POV, making you buy the box AND the subscription is just wrong. In 10 years, the box and CDs will lost all its value. I just want to download the fscking game, pay a monthly fee to play and not accumulate more junk in my house. Why again must I pay for the box again? I thought you needed a valid credit card for subscription anyway...

Re:Expensive?

[bckrispi]

A) You're paying $50, but that's retail. The company has to get the game in the hands of the players, and electronic distriubtion isn't (quite) here yet (the install for EQII came on 2 DVDs and was 6-7GB). So it has to go through the retail chain, and everybody along the way has to make money off of the transaction.

If AOL could fill every video store, electronics store, laundromat and Bait & Tackle shop with free CD's, you can't tell me that Blizzard couldn't offer the install disk for $5.

Re:Expensive?

[stratjakt]

Why not?

Are you saying that unless you can devote a whole lot of time to playing them, they aren't fun?

I can't be "whisked away" to the "enchanted world of warcraft" in a mere hour a week? You can't pop in, kill a couple of elves, have a couple of laughs, and leave?

Bear in mind that I would never give a fuck what level I am in relation to anyone else. I'd be in it just for the fun.

So, is the game simply not fun? Is it only about showing off your level (which equates time spent logged in) to others, or is there any actual gameplay?

Re:Expensive?

[dswensen]

Apparently somebody loves their "free beer" a little too much...

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

The games are hosted on one of the gamer's XBoxes. XBox Live works in a similar manner to Battle Net

Re:Expensive?

[kfg]

Grand Prix Legends (the direct connect one. Up to 20 players at a time. 28k of bandwidth per player. The community supports a match service and provides public servers). Red Baron 3D. AOEII. Those are the big three. I've gotten a fair amount of replay value out of Shogun:Total War as well.

I think the only other game I've even fired up (not counting solitaire) in the last two years is Grim Fandango. That one's worth a pass every now and then, just like a good book is worth rereading.

Of course the genres that interest me may not interest others (FPSs bore me to tears, driving in circles may do the same to you), but the key issue is that they all have replayability built into them by design. They're open ended, just like any "real world" game or sport (which they simulate), and they all represent a "best of breed" version of the genre.

People play sports they like for years, and even lifetimes. Golf, Chess and Go frickin' absorb lifetimes. There's no reason you can't do the same with computer games. Find the good ones. Keep playing them until you're good at them. The best computer games you'll never feel like you're really good at them. Just like Go or Golf. That's part of what makes them replayable.

And if you just want a game you can jump into and play for 5 minutes when you have the time, well, doesn't solitaire come with every frickin' OS in the universe these days?

KFG

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sex .. if you don't have to find the great-grandparent's mom? Condoms are under a buck.

Yeah, so at 20 pops a month I'm looking at about the same bucks...that's without wining, dining, candy, cars, jewelry or any of the rest of it. Plus I have possible nasty disease and pregnancy outcomes to worry about. ;-P

MMOGs are a pretty good deal, really.

Re:Expensive?

[Nogami_Saeko]

I'm sorry. but I don't care... It's too expensive for a game that I might not even be interested in playing in a couple of months.

How about $50 and six months of play time included... As it is. I have no interest in playing WoW.

Re:Expensive?

[Vr6dub]

Who modified this insightful? You're beating a dead horse as the parent of the parent!?! just explained the comparison being made. RTFPost!!

Re:Expensive?

[Verteiron]

.. unless you marry a girl who loves games. My wife and I play everything from Tetris Battle Gaiden (via ZSNES over our network) to Ragnarok Online (wizard+priestess == ownage) to Wheel of Time (with friends) to Tales of Symphonia (on the Gamecube).

A non-trivial percentage of our monthly budget goes into games and gaming simply because it's something we both enjoy doing. I can't imagine being married to someone who -didn't- love playing games...

Re:Expensive?

[The-Bus]

They may do this, I don't know. I haven't played an MMO since UO's first couple of months in 1997.

Why not charge $50 for the game but give two or three month's free time? After all, usually when you buy a game you don't play it too much after the first couple of months.

Why not sell directly from the website? Sell a stripped-down version in a jewel case for $25. Don't include retailers or box manufacturers, etc.

I think it would also make sense to have "tiered" servers. Maybe $20 a month gives you the nice fat pipe, servers with more employees playing roles, scripted events, etc. Maybe you get a badge. For $15 you have the regular game. For $7.95 you've got a server that is often filled and maybe you have to name your characters after products. "New Tide with ColorPlus Bleach(TM) defeats a dragon! You acquire 1,000 Gold and one Sony Walkman(R) for your castle."

I mean, YoHoHo Puzzle Pirates is completely free as in beer (it might have a 30+ day trial period).

I think it would be worthwhile to sell super-premium "lifetime" memberships (realistically limited to 3 years). Instead of charging $50 + ($15 x 36), charge $295. You get a (Chinese made, $3) pewter statue, a t-shirt, a poster, aguide, special gold stars next to your name, etc. Meanwhile the MMO maker gets 6 times the revenue instantly. I can see this being a litmus test for bad games however -- if you haven't earned trust, who's going to plunk down $300 in hopes you're around for a couple of years?

Re:Expensive?

[The-Bus]

Put into that perspective, EverCrack is cheaper than regular Crack. To me the cost of MMOs is time. To really enjoy them you need to devote probably a good 8-15 hours per week, something I don't care to have.

Re:Expensive?

[badmammajamma]

"It's not as "gigantic" a risk as you state. No company will take a "gigantic" risk."

In general, I agree with your statement that companies won't take giant risks. However, with MMOs they are ALL huge risks. Star Wars Galaxies was expected to be a sure thing, however, it's considered a failure and they are trying desperately to revive it. The Sims Online was expected to have the largest MMO subscription base in the world and it was...you guessed it! a failure.

All MMOs are high risk, my friend.

As for $40 mil for half life 2...a) that's just an estimate by outsiders and b) nobody really knows what that number includes. Gimme some hard numbers and we can talk. Even if you can back it up, that would definitely be the exception to the rule.

Oh, and I've been a Blizzard fan forever and was looking forward to the day when I could buy WoW but I've decided not to because it's derivitive crapola.

Re:Expensive?

[Squozen]

You're right, it won't 'catch up' to EQ. It will decimate it. Wait until the Korean launch.

Re:Expensive?

[kfg]

Where do you live? Pleasantville?

Hardly. In fact my city has been a traditional joke city for about 75 years. One of the big laughs of the Cary Grant movie "Dream Wife" is when he says he's from my city and it's funny just to imagine it. Ed Koch called the general area the "land of pickup trucks and gingham dresses." We remembered when it came time to vote for governor.

We do have one hell of a two dollar theater though (three if you want to sit in the balcony. Oh, yeah. The soda's a buck. Candy bars the same price as at the CVS across the street. No need to sneak in your own at all. The city used to be rolling in dough and was one of the biggest stops on the vaudeville circuit (hence the grand old theater) because. . .

Hows the tech industry in your neck of the woods? Some of us migh want to move there. :)

It used to be the tech center of the universe. More PhDs per capita than any place else in the world, including Los Alamos. Once upon a time you could do things like walk down the street and bump into Tesla, Westinghouse, Edison, Bethe, Lord Kelvin, or. . .Kurt Vonnegut.

I'm afraid times have changed, now we play host to the family of the most infamous anti-tech nutball in the world, but in the area we do still have the NY state capital, RPI, Lockheed-Martin, General Electric, Intermagnetics and Plug Power. Lot's of nuclear research, steam turbine manufacture, locomotive manufacture, fuel cell research and banking up the wazoo. You can usually find a job. Especially if you're willing to do desktop tech support. Salaries aren't great, but then the cost of living is nothing compared to NYC or Silicon Valley. $50k here equals a quarter mil there. It's not the money, it's what you can buy with it.

And we have trees, air, trout streams and shit, if you're into that sort of thing.

Come to think of it, stay the hell away, ok. :)

KFG

Re:Expensive?

[An Onerous Coward]

Wow. You really need this.

When you're done with that (you'll probably need the whole book), here are a few further hints:

1) If a person is working on games for Gnome, it doesn't mean he thinks everything should be free.

2) If a person dislikes intrusive DRM systems, it does mean he thinks everything should be free.

3) The grandparent didn't say it was a shame that WoW was charging money for their game. He was complaining that the costs are excessive and badly structured. Blizzard should be able to make plenty of money just off subscriptions.

4) Good grammar makes for happy readers.

5) Gratuitous insults make for unpersuaded readers.

6) Caffeine and ritalin don't mix.

Re:Expensive?

[Knightking]

AOL doesn't have someone who only makes money from people buying the CDs. Blizzard does, and they're even owned by them.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're either a bad troll or really misinformed.
1) Counter-Strike retail is $15.90
2) Steam is not DRM, It restricts you no more than WON did. All it does is give you more options to play, like not needing to remember where your hl cd is (I know people that have bought a copy of HL 4+ times. because of that)
3) You don't need steam. Buy two copies of CS:Retail. Slap them in two computers. Go to "host game" on one, and connect from the other. Don't bitch that your version is too old to play online, you bought a retail product, not a service. If you want updates, they come on the manufacturers terms (steam)

Re:Expensive?

[BollocksToThis]

On the flip side, most computer games cost the same amount up front as WoW does

Not exactly true - if I buy any other non-MMORPG game, I get to play that game as often as I like over the entire lifetime of my machine (and very probably my next three machines too).

I am waiting for someone to hack the shit out of WoW so I can play it single player offline. THEN it will be worth $50... I don't give a crap about the social aspect of WoW right now, I want to see all the beautiful locations and follow the various stories for the races, while building up a character doing quests and killing stuff. That 4+ GB sitting on my drive MUST have pretty much all the content - why can't I buy it as a single player game and pay for the online stuff when I actually want to interact with other players (like Diablo)? If it's true that the cost of the game will cover their development costs, then they have nothing to lose under this model.

Re:Expensive?

[Knightking]

WoW is definatly the best major MMORPG for this, but no, you won't enjoy it if you play it an hour a week, any more than you would enjoy any classic CRPG if you played it an hour a week. You won't make it far in the story, get high enough level to do any real PVP stuff, or be on enough to do anything "social". As these are the main appeals of WoW, why would you want to play if you can only play an hour a week?

Re:Expensive?

[Knightking]

War2 BNE is actually a relatively recent product (99 iirc). Diablo 1 is the oldest game you can play on bnet.

Re:Expensive?

[Tongo]

Another good and free online game is Continuum (used to be subspace). You can hope online and play for 10 minutes or 10 hours. It doesn't have fancy graphics or game play (it's a lot like a steroid addicted asteriods). There are a few different game styles, but my favorite is capture the flags. I have a blast and play as much as I can spare the time.

Re:Expensive?

[Pinkoir]

But the company needs the 50 bucks from the sale of the game to stay solvent. Maybe not Sony or Blizzard who have deep deep pockets and the ability to carry a bunch of debt but a lot of MMORPGs are done by smaller companies who don't have anything else. Think of Anarchy Online...ever heard of Funcom in any other application? I sure hadn't. Or EVE Online...that's run by a company out of Reykjavik in Iceland. If they don't get the initial infusion of cash to cover the development expenses and pay a few months salary the game is over before it begins.

I'm not in the software industry but I am in Product Development and I know it takes a crap-ton of money to get a project off the ground. If you don't have deep pockets that means debt and the only way to get out from under it before it crushes you is to get a good chunk of money. That's why the $50 up front. Once a game is established that price usually goes away. To go back to the EVE Online example, you can now just download the client and start up a new account for $19 IIRC. They are established and have a stable cashflow so they don't need the $50 "entry barrier" any more.

-Pinkoir

Re:Expensive?

[Progoth]

I dropped netflix for WoW....I can get many more hours of entertainment from wow every month for $3 less....

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft may or may not provide a few high bandwith hosts, but if it does those are exceptions. XBox Live is peer to peer. If you're on a 16 player server with voice, the host is likely to be a college student taking advantage of the school's 40 megabit connection.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

English isn't your first language, is it? You have the reading comprehension of a five year old. Go back to elementary school and don't post on slashdot again until you can make sense.

Re:Expensive?

[Ruprecht the Monkeyb]

Did you see how AOL just got hit for a $750 million fine for the funny accounting they used to justify sending out all those CDs?

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Real name?

So your mom named you CRiMSON?

No wonder you're so mad.

Thanks for stopping by, hypocrite.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not charge $50 for the game but give two or three month's free time? After all, usually when you buy a game you don't play it too much after the first couple of months.

That would be a good idea, and will probably happen as more big, competitive MMORPGs come out looking for ways to poach each others' subscribers.

Why not sell directly from the website? Sell a stripped-down version in a jewel case for $25. Don't include retailers or box manufacturers, etc.

The publishers would declare war. Just look at Valve with Half Life 2. Either you get your start without a long term contract (hard) and go 100% electronic and mail order distribution (hard and still eliminates most of your market) or you play ball with the publishers. WoW's Blizzard is even owned by the publisher.

I think it would also make sense to have "tiered" servers. Maybe $20 a month gives you the nice fat pipe, servers with more employees playing roles, scripted events, etc. Maybe you get a badge. For $15 you have the regular game. For $7.95 you've got a server that is often filled and maybe you have to name your characters after products. "New Tide with ColorPlus Bleach(TM) defeats a dragon! You acquire 1,000 Gold and one Sony Walkman(R) for your castle."

Everquest does something like this. I don't play it, so I don't know how successful the tiered program has been.

I mean, YoHoHo Puzzle Pirates is completely free as in beer (it might have a 30+ day trial period).

Yes, they kick ass. There's probably a few overpaid executives out there trying to figure out how to stop those guys, because that sort of game can change the market.

I think it would be worthwhile to sell super-premium "lifetime" memberships (realistically limited to 3 years). Instead of charging $50 + ($15 x 36), charge $295. You get a (Chinese made, $3) pewter statue, a t-shirt, a poster, aguide, special gold stars next to your name, etc. Meanwhile the MMO maker gets 6 times the revenue instantly. I can see this being a litmus test for bad games however -- if you haven't earned trust, who's going to plunk down $300 in hopes you're around for a couple of years?

Good idea. Not practical for a small startup, but I wouldn't be surprised to see this kind of deal available in the next few years, when companies figure out Everquest 3 will force all the lifetime Everquest 2 buyers to blow another $300.

Re:Expensive?

[LilGuy]

As you can tell I dont play MMOGs either but I've seen what happens to some people that play them, and I swore them off. Though the matrix one looks tempting, I won't play it.

BTW: there's nothing wrong with my math.. if you could read, you'd notice I never said you had to rebuy the game every month. I said you had to buy expansions. Sure I exagerrated a little on that part, but its the principle of the matter that counts.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right, you can't. MMORPGs are like those annoying girls who want to wait until marriage. You'll have to spend a lot more than an hour a week on it to get anything worthwhile out of the deal, but if you want to dedicate your whole life to it, there's plenty of gameplay

If you don't like it, just hope somebody makes another Diablo 2-style game. D2 had very little in common with WoW.

Re:Expensive?

[Neb Namwen]

Hrm, "free"... Gee, Blizzard marketing department, thanks for offering us a free month of game play in exchange for buying a $50 game that is useless without that subscription.

Well, one thing to hope for would be a game that wasn't "useless" without a subscription. There are a number of ways this could be done, each of which has a reason why it will never happen in the commercial MMORPG world:

1. Give the game a single-player mode -- this will never happen because it wouldn't be the same game, or rather, it wouldn't be marketable as the same game.
2. Use an existing engine -- actually, I don't know why this couldn't be done, although it might not be as marketable as a game with a new engine. This would be similar to the above scenario except that the single-player mode is a separate game that has already been released. The Warcraft 3 engine could be tweaked into a very interesting MMORPG, for example.
3. Don't tie the client to the official server -- this will never happen because they make money from subscriptions, which they don't want to lose. "If you want to see our content on our servers, you need a subscription, but if not feel free to play on other random people's servers" is a nice sentiment, but it won't fly as a business model. Players looking for this sort of freedom should look to free or open source engines, as others on this topic have mentioned.

I would love to see a MMORPG that would eat up just a little of my life, priced accordingly.

Re:Expensive?

[aastanna]

It seems pretty fair to me. I pay $60 for your average game and I'll typically play it for one month before I'm bored. I pay $60 for WoW and I'll play it for one month. If they keep adding new content and keeping me interensted I'll keep playing $15/month.

If new content in WoW keeps me interested enough not to buy a new game every couple of months I'm out ahead, and if not I'll cancel my subscription.

Re:Expensive?

[snuf23]

One thing that noone seems to mention is that you are paying for future content. At least with City of Heroes I have already seen two major updates with a third on its way shortly. I haven't had to pay anything extra for this additional content.
The other reason that can be noted is that you are paying for an ongoing service rather than a game that runs entirely on your computer. This requires dedicated servers to be run, maintained and to have support staff available. It's also not the same as multiplayer FPS servers since MMO's have to maintain a persistant character base and do it reliably.
Does this make it worth it? Well I guess it depends on the player. My monthly game expenditure has gone down since I started playing COH because most of my gaming is COH. Go figure.

Re:Expensive?

[(54)T-Dub]

*cough* Steam © *cough*
And tivo is hardware. I can understand that initial cost. The cost to allow a user to download a game is far less than the retail price.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe you should check your head before you make such statements.

Average MMO -> 10$/month, maybe 12 at highest. 15 is kinda absurd. Might as well give the game for free if it hits 20$/month.

Re:Expensive?

[Sl4shd0t0rg]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. no.

Silly rabbit, networking is not for you.

There is only one game that is using dedicated servers that host the game and that is Pantasy Star Online. There are XBL servers that hold the stats and what not but the connections are host/client based with the people you are playing. Example: Halo 2, if the host drops there a pause in the game and the system looks for the next best person to host the match and the game contiunes.
That's why I can play a 16-player battle, with voice communication, in Halo 2 on XBox Live, when there's no way any of us could host such a thing on our normal connections. Um if you read anything about how they designed the Halo 2 matchmaking and game play system you would understand why you statement is false. The whole reason why there is the 4 step process when joining games in Halo 2 is to find people with similar quality connection (rank as well).
It's also the reason I can play that 16 player game with people from Quebec, Texas, Alaska, etc, and not any lag problems.
Distance over GSP networks dosn't increase the lag all that much. It is the quality of the connections.

Re:Expensive?

[Sl4shd0t0rg]

At this time, yes..

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it were P2P, there's no way Halo 2 would play as well as it does, because it's a friggin pig on XBConnect no matter who hosts.

XBC is not as streamlined as XBL. XBC is a hack after all.

Re:Expensive?

[orbital3]

Tip for the compulsive gamer: never ever buy a game when it first comes out. It'll get cheap eventually, trust me. Minus the very odd exception (usually only limited edition boxes of games I've been waiting a long time for), I never have to pay more than $20 for a game, and sometimes as low as $10 or so! All you have to do is stay 6-12 months behind the curve of what is the latest and greatest. The additional bonus is that, at least for PC gaming, this saves you money on hardware too, because you don't have to upgrade as often. Buying games for half the price means you get twice as many to play for the same amount of money. You'll have so many games to play, you won't mind waiting the 6-12 months for the stuff that just came out.

Re:Expensive?

[Ohreally_factor]

For $7.95 you've got a server that is often filled and maybe you have to name your characters after products.

It's sick fucks like you that keep me coming back to slash dot. Product placement in MMORPGs!

"I tire of this quest for the Golden Nikes®. Let us go to Castle Qualcomm®, where I might get a Coke® and a Big Mac®, and perhaps have my coat of many logos repaired."

"But Sir Viacom®! You promised Princess Exxon®!

Aren't they already doing this in the SIM games?

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're conveniently leaving the multiple years of development by a 30-100 man team out of the picture.

Re:Expensive?

[SorcererX]

As for some places not even that, here McDonalds would be close to $15 for one meal, and I certainly wouldn't get two trips to the movies, one trip with some snack possibly. :)

Re:Expensive?

[flibuste]

You are one lucky husband!

I am still wondering how to get my wife to touch a video game for her first time in life.

I am hoping WOW will do the job ;-)

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

One video game a month? Thats great!! The pact with my wife is if I buy a video game then I sleep in the doghouse for a month!

Re:Expensive?

[Khaotix]

Parent is spot on. I end up playing a game for at most a month before getting bored with it. Max Payne 2 lasted about a week. I played Asheron's Call for roughly 2 years. I only played other games that looked *real* good.

MMORPG payment schemes have always been more than reasonable in my mind. Do a breakdown of cost per hour. I spend about twice as much taking a girl to see a movie + getting us both a drink.

Re:Expensive?

[Khaotix]

B.net which you will note was free.

Xbox Live == Gamespy

It does matchmaking. That's just about it. I remember a bunch of kids freshman year of college just used tunneling to play Halo MP without Xbox Live fees. MS just wanted to make more $$.

Re:Expensive?

[Khaotix]

Maybe $15 seems like chump change because I live in a city.

Movie ticket = $11.
Popcorn + Soda = $10

I can pay $8 to go to a shitty theater that has very vocal, annoying minorities who like shouting at the movie.

I could save $15 by bringing lunch to work twice.

Re:Expensive?

[Khaotix]

*laugh*
that's a regular topic of discussion. USA players I chat with are quite happy that the kekeke players will have their own servers as they make gaming no fun. I don't feel like competition with people who play games 70 hrs straight.

Korea will be a massive market though, yes. Euro release is looking significant too.

Re:Expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

1000 people at $15, easily. I will spend less total on server costs. Now if the 3000 people were willing to spend $10, then we have a decision to make.

Re:Expensive?

[MaineCoon]

Except that most users can't or won't deal with a 1-2 gig download, and want to have the CDs.

You can't cut the retail stores out of the picture. Store exposure is an important method of selling a game, even one that can only be played online. Download-only games tend to have smaller distribution and thus smaller player-base.

Re:Expensive?

[(54)T-Dub]

Thus the ~$15/month charge.

Re:Expensive?

[stratjakt]

You still can, but tunneling sucks ass.

It still doesn't make sense, since 16 player matches on Halo 2 run fine, hell 32 player matches in Star Wars Battlefront run fine.

But any time I've been in a Halo/Halo 2 tunneled game, it's been laggy and shit with 3 or more boxes connected.

Re:Expensive?

[shakamojo]

buy about 2 video games a month. At 40.00 (looks like this will go up, both doom 3 and HL2 were 55.00) a game, thats 960.00 a year on video games + 800 * 2 = 2560 a year (not including tax) on games.

Let me get this straight, you spend $1600 a year for two EQ accounts? That's $67/mo. in recurring fees per account? Is it just me or does that sound way too high? Granted, I played EQ a long time ago, but the recurring fees were only like $12 or something!

Let's say you had 2 EQ accounts with ALL the bells and whistles (the all access package EQ, PlanetSide, and EQ2) that's $22/mo. I know for a while they had an additional "journal" type service that was another $10/mo. so say you signed up for that too. Total that out over a year and it's $768 total for two accounts for the full year. What on earth did you spend the remaining $832 on?

Re:Expensive?

[bckrispi]

It's AOL/Time-Warner. Warner Bros. is very much in the business of selling cd's.

Re:Expensive?

[CRiMSON]

So upgrade your fucking machine. I bet your the type who stills jerks off to 70's porn, Cause he it's tits right?

Re:Expensive?

[FictionPimp]

expansions.

You forgot the cost of the games themselves. And the cost of expansions (one about every 3-5 months). And if you dont buy the expansions, you might as well quit. Which is why I did :-)

Mac launch??!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

1st!

and i'm really happy that WoW is mac playable at launch date. I don't own a mac, but it's something mac fans will appreciate

Re:Mac launch??!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

you god damn well better appreciate it, after all the mac beta testing i endured! another half-hour, another full system lock. it's quite polished now, though. no worries.

Re:Mac launch??!?!

[47Ronin]

and i'm really happy that WoW is mac playable at launch date.

Simultaneous Mac and PC version launches are nothing new from Blizzard. They know Mac users have tons of spendable cash and like polished software

Re:Mac launch??!?!

[bughunter]

Heh. I just bought a new iMac G5 just to play WoW.

(Well, that and edit video. But once I install WoW, I won't be doing much else.)

Re:Mac launch??!?!

[DLWormwood]

Simultaneous Mac and PC version launches are nothing new from Blizzard. They know Mac users have tons of spendable cash and like polished software

While Blizzard has always supported the Mac, they were only first able to make a successful dual launch with Diablo II: LoD. They missed D2 itself by a few weeks.

Blizzard's old modus operandi was to make an initial run of Windows-only discs, then make the second and later pressings Mac/PC hybrid discs. However, at some point, they realized that it would reduce supplier and customer confusion to always have just the one media version in circulation. (Their tech support probably cost a lot of money due to angry Mac users who ordered the game thinking it was hybrid pressing, but the retailer unloaded a first edition copy instead.)

They also moved the Mac porting work in-house, by absorbing old partners like Future Point. (They did the port of the first Diablo.) This had the fortunate side effect of improving QA and testing, since a common code base that compiles to two architectures simulatinously can reveal bugs more quickly than a code base that accidentally makes assumptions about a given architecture.

Re:Mac launch??!?!

[Omestes]

Actually I just bought a mac (or "switched", as the fanatics say), and was SERIOUSLY jonesing for my gaming fix, with nothing but my old PC software. The only games I could find that were dual installs were from Blizzard (Diablo, Warcraft II, 3, and expansions, and the Diablo 2 expansion. No Diablo 2, though, which made me mad.) Meaning my esteem for Blizzard has increased exponencially. I've always though that they were a SOLID company, with the best support, and the highest product standards of any company in existence, but this just added too it. (No, I don't care about people wanting to rip off battlenet).

I would be buying WoW if I wasn't a poor student right now, and if my pocket book wasn't raped by Apple. Don't get me wrong, I like my little Mac, but it was far too steep, even if superior than any other OS choice out there. (let the flaming begin!)

Re:Mac launch??!?!

[devmage]

Simultaneous Mac and PC version launches are nothing new from Blizzard. They know Mac users have tons of spendable cash and like polished software

Thats a good point I never thought of. Why do so many people ignore a market that obviously has lots of money? I'm surprised more people don't follow Blizzards simulantious development strategy and get Mac market. I wonder what it takes to write a game for the PC and Mac at the same time? I'm guessing at least half of the code must be shared? Wish more people did it. I'm currently playing WoW: Collectors Edition on my Dual 2Ghz G5 and 20" Apple Cinema Display :)

Another addition

[93,000]

to what has been an amazing several months for gaming. I hope WOW turns out to be everything it's been hyped up to be.

Well I am gonna wait

[DebianDog]

I am gonna go ahead and wait for "patch 1"
THEN
say good-bye to the wife and kids for a few months.

Re:Well I am gonna wait

[Anonymous Coward]

While I understand you were trying to be funny and all, I still felt the need to point out that they issued at least one patche that I know of durring the open beta. That was not than a week ago, right before them shuttering and wiping the data in prep for the retail release.

Re:Well I am gonna wait

[TrumpetX]

"patch 1" was released months ago in beta... This game is about as clean as one can get. The final stress test had some lag issues, but apparently those have been fixed (although I can't say that for sure.)

My recommendation is go to go walmart or wherever and get your copy today.

Re:Well I am gonna wait

[kwerle]

The game is rock solid, and has been for months. I've only heard stories about other launches, but they just don't apply.

Re:Well I am gonna wait

[Anonymous Coward]

"Patch 1"? Aren't they STILL patching Diablo 2, for God's sake? I wouldn't be too surprised to see another patch for Warcraft 1..

1st day curse

[CarnivoreMan]

We'll see if they can avoid the opening day problems that always haunt MMORPG launches. =)

Re:1st day curse

[glowimperial]

I popped on during my lunch break to put a lock on my name on my Guild's server of choice, and it was rolling smooth as it did during Beta. I opened the box and was ingame in less that n 15 minutes, including creating a toon and creating a new account and doing billing info. Smooth as silk.

Re:1st day curse

[harlows_monkeys]

We'll see if they can avoid the opening day problems that always haunt MMORPG launches. =)

Not always. EQ2 was almost flawless. Same with CoH and DAoC.

Re:1st day curse

[CarnivoreMan]

Ah crap.. I guess I should have said MOST MMORPG launches.. =) I'm glad though to see the game launch smoothly. If I was lookin for a MMOG to play it would probably be that one. I enjoyed the beta.

Re:1st day curse

[Darniaq]

EQ2 launch day was ok, but the succeeding three days of four hour downtimes and uber patches marred it a bit :)

eq2

[Anonymous Coward]

I've played WOW and EQ2, EQ2 wins no contest. Maybe I'm too old, but its too far away from the good old fashion D&Dish rules?

Re:eq2

[Thorizdin]

Bah, anyone who says EQ wins anything needs to be tarred and feathered.

Re:eq2

[DrXym]

I played the WoW beta and on the whole I thought it was extremely well done. The graphics are certainly not cutting edge but they are good enough and work well on all machines, not just the latest. The zones are extremely fast to load, imaginative, bright, and diverse. And I say fast to load I mean it - think seconds to load with very few zone loads at all. The game also possesses a certain Nintendo-esque feel which makes it feel more light and fun.

Gameplay wise, I thought the quests were better than the auto-quest mulch you find in DAOC and SWG and the UI is fairly easy to use too. The crafting was so-so but at least you could make things that had value. The first ten levels were pretty easy to solo in the beta, but it got a bit harder then. I didn't play much longer because the beta ended.

I haven't played EQ2 but I'm not exactly bowled over by its pedigree. I hated EQ (when I realised that the fun had been replaced with grind and Verant didn't care about the top heavy player population), and I saw nothing about SWG to suggest EQ2 would be any better.

Having said that, I don't think I'd pay $15 for a monthly game either. It would have to be a bloody good game, and it would have to be a free download to warrant me bothering.

Re:eq2

[poohsuntzu]

http://www.eve-online.com

If you like a bit of roleplay, enjoy rpg style action blended with amazing graphics... you might want to consider EVE online. There are a ton of reasons why, but I'll brush up on only a few:

1. No level grind. Since this game takes place in the future (WAY in the future) the human mind no longer learns just through experiences, it learns through memory chips. You insert them Matrix-style and your brain processes the information. This means, instead of killing over and over for experience you can just right click on your skill list (obtained by purchasing them), and set it to learn. Each skill has 5 total levels to it, the skills are organized into different ranks(difficulty) of learning them.

At that point, that's it. You're done with the leveling. Now you just wait for it to complete. Some skills take 6 minutes to learn, some 39 days to fully learn (like Navigation level 5). However, that's okay because you can continue learning skills even while not logged in. That's right, you can be away on a cruise and still be learning skills. Just set it to a LONG term skill (say a week or two) and go on the cruise. While you are away, the skill is cheerfully working it's way into your character's brain.

2. Space. It's a massive area just begging for a good MMORPG to take hold of it. Fortunatally EVE Online has. EVE online is a space-flight based game in third person mode, using rpg style controls rather than first person controlling.

3. The graphics continually amaze everyone who plays. Here are some from my own character ingame:

Screenshot 1

Screenshot 2

Screenshot 3

Screenshot 4

4. Customer service is actually very helpful, and by that I mean familiar with the topic they are trying to help you on because support not only progroms EVE, but is most likely also one of the GM's ingame. They are network professionals who deal with the problems as soon as they appear.

Anyways blah blah blah, sell sell sell. Give it a trial, and see if it may end up being something you could spend $15 a month on.

Re:eq2

[DrXym]

Thanks, I'll check it out. I do like Elite style games, but I passed over Eve at the time because I was playing City of Heroes. Now I'm done with CoH I might just go back and see if I missed anything.

Re:eq2

[poohsuntzu]

Well, until about 3am (mountain time) the game will be down tonight due to the release of a HUGE upgrade named Exodus. Not to worry, tomorrow things should be as good as new.

If you would like a free seven day trial, let me know and I'll activate one for you as soon as the servers come online tonight/this morning.

Re:eq2

[Darniaq]

As a die-hard MMORPGer, I swallowed the $14.95/mo fee as I have for countless games of questionable worth :)

However, I also had very low hopes for the game based on what I saw at the two last E3s. I'm a convert, to both WoW and EQ2. The games are very similar. I can play only one, because I have time for only one, at best. But I tried to do a side-by-side comparison of them both.

If anyone's interested, head on over to here.

Re:eq2

[Anonymous Coward]

...then lather me up with tar and feathers and call me a chicken!

I just started EQ2 this week and it's awesome. Graphics, sound, presentation and gameplay all A++. Like Doom3 and HL2 the new graphics engine also scales very well, so you can run it on older hardware.

I got over the original EQ ages ago, but the new one is excellent. It's such a different game to EQ1 it all feels very fresh again.

If you were ever addicted to Evercrack, but got over it, then give this one a go. You might be as pleasantly surprised as I was.

Re:eq2

[DrXym]

Hi, yes please. I have the latest client via bittorrent now. If you're able to arrange a trial, can you email a trial key to drxym AT yahoo.com. Cheers! I'd like to give it a go although I can't make any guarantees as to whether I'll stick with it.

eve-online 'exodus' launches today as well..

[joeldg]

eve-online is also doing their huge expansion titled "exodus" today as well..

One of the most anticipated expansions in MM games for a while... large download (519M) but not as large as WoW which is 2.1GB

Re:eve-online 'exodus' launches today as well..

[Pinkoir]

Yes w00t for Exodus....

I can't wait to start busting up some complexes in my Enyo. With this expansion my desire to try WoW is almost zero. Only if most of my buddies decided to start a crew in WoW would I be even tempted away from what is IMO the deepest and most rewarding MMORPG ever

-Pinkoir

Re:eve-online 'exodus' launches today as well..

[joeldg]

Yep.. the game rules..
glad they pushed the expansion back though as from reports it needed a bit of polish.
exciting now, player owned stations and a whole new set of ships to pilot.
fun fun fun..
only thing is all the new skills I have to get. heh

Re:eve-online 'exodus' launches today as well..

[Hido]

The best part is that the expansion is "Free" instead of having to goto a store and fork out another $50 like all the other MMO's out there.

In 9 hours and I will be heading over to Yulai to get some goodies on market there to provide the people, should be able to start raking in the isks!

Also lvl4 agents are going to be making me a very very rich man :)

Re:eve-online 'exodus' launches today as well..

[Anonymous Coward]

Definately loving Eve. Although there are things about the game that I don't like, they seem to have got most of the important stuff in there, and the sandbox type nature of the game means the game community actually has a real presence in the game, even being written into stories and the game itself.

I'll be firing it up when I get home tonight to help our corp build what will hopefully be a great player owned station.

Why pay $15 a month?

[earthforce_1]

I am having just as much fun playing the free alpha Wurm Online.

http://www.wurmonline.com

The client is even written in Java so it should be runnable under Linux.

Re:Why pay $15 a month?

[SilentChris]

Wow. You've got some low standards. :) Personally, I'd pay the $15 for some quality gameplay and graphics.

Re:Why pay $15 a month?

[terrox]

wow this game is really quite good for free. It is like A tale in the Desert and has some nice wavy grass, reflections and thick foliage. You need a hefty graphics card to take all the settings, but its fine on low settings too.

Check it out. http://www.wurmonline.com/client/wurmclient.jnlp

Why, oh why..

[MP*Birdman]

didn't I call in sick today?

It's sitting at home installed, and I'm sitting here at work :(

Re:Why, oh why..

[Lord Apolon]

Because you already called in sick for Halo 2 Halflife 2 Everquest 2 Nintendo DS just this month, and you're out of sick days!

Waited a Long Time for this, but...

[Onimaru]

I was all looking forward to this game coming out, but City of Heroes snagged me instead. Not that I'm not interested, but I have friends, a supergroup, etc...

Which brings me to thinking: how long until we get some kind of trade-in service for MMORPG characters? What if I could trade into the WoW universe some portion of the time / XP I put into my CoH character? What if I got a bonus to what I got for each friend I brought along? Seems like a good business to me. You give away something worth nothing for extreme goodwill and extra subscribers.

And hey, you could even sell the characters on eBay if you wanted! Hehe.

Re:Waited a Long Time for this, but...

[*weasel]

I think joining WoW with a mid-to-high level character would be self-defeating. Levelling isn't a chore at all, and most of the quests are exceptional.

Skipping that content wouldn't seem like much of a fair trade to me.

Re:Waited a Long Time for this, but...

[zaffir]

There's a service that will let you transfer gold between games. Check it out.

Re:Waited a Long Time for this, but...

[Flunitrazepam]

That, in a strikingly fitting analogy, would be like getting all the gifts you gave your first girlfriend back to give to your last.

and i do mean "last"

Re:Waited a Long Time for this, but...

[ssand]

A trade in service could help switch people, however it removes a portion of the game play. If tons of people started off at 1/5 of the max level, they've missed out on the content for whats below them, and possibly those challanges. The other issue would be to determine what one person has, as i doubt they would let another company look at the data. I suppose you would have to send in you're account, where they would determine what is worth how much, erase it, and transfer you.

There are a few games that have a referall option that people can earn free time if they refer people. However, I don't know how well this works, since many people think referalls is a little cheesy, and similar to other "referall pyramid schemes" that have been around.

Re:Waited a Long Time for this, but...

[ameoba]

Wretched idea. In most of these MMORPGs, grouping is an important part of gameplay. One can generally assume that characters of a certain level have some minimal competency at playing the game. The last thing I want to do is find myself dead 'cuz some newbie who hasn't even run through the tutorial thinks they can swing it as a level 20 cleric.

Re:Waited a Long Time for this, but...

[Sentry21]

I suppose you could sell your character at IGE and then use that money to buy money in WoW to start yourself off with. I'm seriously considering selling my FF character - at current rates, I could clear a few hundred dollars US, which is more than I paid for the game and the subscription to date.

Re:Keep yer conscience clean

[HouseOfGeek]

The BNEtD is for WarCraft/Starcraft games not for World of Warcraft. The MMORPG world has a much bigger infrastructure running it.

I for one...

[kamelkev]

welcome our orc and elven overlords.

Zug Zug

Beta Testers getting out of the country...

[LegendOfLink]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2004-11 -22&res=l

Pseudo-BitTorrent

[Icarus1919]

Unfortunately I discovered that the WoW downloading client acts as a pseudo bittorrent client, which caused my school to shut down my internet connection for seven days. For anyone else out there who is going to a school with draconian downloading rules (such as University of Florida and their ICARUS client [previously featured on slashdot]), be warned.

Re:Pseudo-BitTorrent

[wastingtape]

Yea I spent about 20 seconds looking at the client and already knew what it was doing. Closed it. Went to FilePlanet. Waited in line for 3 hours. Downloaded the client for another 12. Didn't worry about the stupid psuedo-bt client ever again. :)

Re:Pseudo-BitTorrent

[Juanvaldes]

At least on Mac OS you can open up the package and get the .torrent file and open that up in any BT client of your choice.

Re:Pseudo-BitTorrent

[llefler]

At least on Mac OS you can open up the package and get the .torrent file and open that up in any BT client of your choice.

You could do it under Windows too. You just needed to dig into the EXE and pull out the resource. I used ABC, and my download went from days to hours. And since my internet connection was still usable with ABC, I let it run for a day or so after it finished.

Re:Pseudo-BitTorrent

[Timber_Z]

I believe the guy who wrote BitTorrent, is working at blizzard, and wrote that app.

Re:Pseudo-BitTorrent

[kylector]

Really? Sweet! Thanks for the tip, although it probably won't be necessary for me. Good to know, regardless.

Re:Pseudo-BitTorrent

[Fo0eY]

he works at valve actually

Re:Pseudo-BitTorrent

[glowimperial]

Was this during beta or post launch. They bittorrent client was only for downloading the game client itself. The WoW patcher is not bittorrent, as far as I know. You should have no problems playing the game post launch.

Re:Pseudo-BitTorrent

[sahonen]

If he works at Valve, why doesn't Steam use a P2P content distribution method?

Re:Pseudo-BitTorrent

[KZigurs]

it IS bittorent client. With hardcoded torrent.

Re:Pseudo-BitTorrent

[satanami69]

Because he doesn't work very hard.

Re:Pseudo-BitTorrent

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, there's a button in the downloader that you can click. It turns off peer-to-peer mode. It will then download from a central server - but probably at much slower transfer rates than if you use P2P.

So it may not be a problem (depending on how paranoid / brutally retarded your school is).

Re:Pseudo-BitTorrent

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the current patcher uses the same system. Ther is a checkbox that will allow you to disable the thing and do a 'regular' download, but it's flakey. Speeds seem to jump and fall a lot.

I was getting better speed out of the non-torrent system, so I turned that off.

19+MB, took me about 30 minutes. Would have been 45-60 with the torrent, that's with DSL. Whatever they're using, it either 1) sucks in implementation, or 2) is horribly overloaded. Probably 3) both. With 500,000 people signed up during the last beta to download 2+GB of files to test, I'm assuming that there will be near a million paying players before very long.

Re:Pseudo-BitTorrent

[arodland]

Wow. You need to straighten them out. It's one thing if they have a policy that says "don't do stuff with your connection that breaks the law" for instance by infringing copyright, but if you're doing perfectly legitimate things with BitTorrent, that aren't blocked outright, then on what grounds did they suspend your access, and why does that sort of asinine policy persist? Is it the whole "you're not allowed to be a server" thing?

Re:Pseudo-BitTorrent

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, I'm not sure that citing "legal use" in this case would be enough to get you off the hook. Most Universities here in the UK seem to have regulations against use of their facilities for online gaming, which, while rarely enforced (except in a few cases by draconian firewalls), do basically mean they can yank your access if they see you doing something like this and decide they don't approve.

Of course, as most Universities in the UK use JANET, which I believe it taxpayer-subsidised, I can kind of see their point. Almost.

Re:Keep yer conscience clean

[Decker]

It's still the same company though, doesn't matter if it's running on different servers

Line at Frys in Fountain Valley, CA

[Timber_Z]

I Showed up about 11:00pm last night, figured that the line might be half way around the building, Turns out the line went around the building twice, took up most of the parking lot, and then for good measure it went down the street a couple hundred yards. Talking to the Fry's Employee, he said that they had 2 or 3 truck loads of games on the way, but doubted thier would be enough for everyone. The poor guy seemed rather alarmed and stressed seeing several thousand gamers surrounding the store. According to him, the line started forming around 1pm. Although everyone seemed to be in a good mood, I didn't stick around.

Re:Line at Frys in Fountain Valley, CA

[geekoid]

First off. I hate that Frys. that said
How many people could have just gotten up early the next day and found it somewhere else?

Re:Line at Frys in Fountain Valley, CA

[Hinhule]

Probably all of them, but the blizzard staff wasn't somewhere else signing their copies.

Re:Line at Frys in Fountain Valley, CA

[DA_MAN_DA_MYTH]

That would have been tough. My buddy went to Fry's at Fountain Valley, lucky for me he still had his pre-order ticket for EB Games which I used. They were all out / except for pre-orders at three different EB Games in Southern California.

Re:Line at Frys in Fountain Valley, CA

[ExInferus]

Well, being the masochist that I am, I went to Fountain Valley, and did stick it out until the end. I was one of the last people who actually got a copy of the game, and there were still people behind me, so the fears about running out were correct. They offered posters (which could be signed) to those who didn't get the game...

Half the reason I went was for the craziness of a few thousand nerds at Fry's in the middle of the night (or early morning - didn't get out of there until 4am).

--
ExInferus

Re:Line at Frys in Fountain Valley, CA

[DigiShaman]

Hell, I would have gone just to meet up with a chick that has similar interests...assuming there are some that don't already have boyfriends.

Time to break out the beer and weed and have a sweet tailgate party. W00t

Re:Line at Frys in Fountain Valley, CA

[ADRA]

If you read the wow site, you'd know that that location was where WOW staff were to sign autographs or the such, so there WAS a reason why that store was so insanely busy.

You do have to wonder why people would be so dedicated to get autographs from sweaty geek developers!

Re:Line at Frys in Fountain Valley, CA

[antdude]

Are there any photographs and videos of this event?

Re:Line at Frys in Fountain Valley, CA

[Slime-dogg]

Yeah... very informative.

Re:Line at Frys in Fountain Valley, CA

[Anonymous Coward]

I ran down to Target at lunch and got a copy. Forget the collector's edition, and obviously no Blizz staff there to sign it. The obvious retail stores may run out in busy areas, but I'm sure there's not a general shortage of copies available.

The event was too huge to hold at a place like that, I'm sure. This is a hugely popular franchise, they were bound to get overrun.

Re:Line at Frys in Fountain Valley, CA

[psychokitten]

Wow. That's pretty sad - in comparison, I just wandered into EB around lunch time, and picked up one of the many dozen copies of the game they had that wasn't a pre-order.

Re:Line at Frys in Fountain Valley, CA

[Anonymous Coward]

CRAZY! Imagine if people were this dedicated to social change, the arts, or education.

Re:Line at Frys in Fountain Valley, CA

[Anonymous Coward]

You could say the same about a Britney Spears concert.

When does it come out for consoles? Yeah, I know..

[amrust]

I'd play this in a split second, if it weren't for the fact I'd need to upgrade the ol' PC. I play FFXI on PS2 now, and am growing quite tired of it. I wish they'd port WoW for PS2 and/or XBox.

Re:Keep yer conscience clean

[insensitive claude]

Thats beside the point. Parent is trying to ease the conscious burden of supporting Blizzard even though they are assholes.

Um, it's just you

[betelgeuse68]

That price point is fairly common (range) with MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games; I assumed you didn't know the acronym since you posed the question).

MMORPGs are one of those things you are either interested in or not. And whether it's worth it depends on which side you're on. I subscribe to Final Fantasy XI for $12.95/month and I can't complain. That's just two fast food meals.

Yes, but EQ set the standard with $9.95...

[Ohz]

Therefore, $15 for an arguably better, more recent game is acceptable for most people.

Re:Yes, but EQ set the standard with $9.95...

[Fizzlewhiff]

EQ set the standard but they long ago raised the price. The trick is to prepay for 3-6 months and save money. That is what they want you to do at least, keeps you locked in for a longer period of time.

Re:Yes, but EQ set the standard with $9.95...

[Number14]

EQ didn't set the standard- UO did. UO was $9.95, and EQ didn't think they would pull enough people away if they were any more expensive, so they too were $9.95. That was the baseline price until a few years ago, and now they all mostly hover around $15.

Oddly lag free

[Alcimedes]

I was playing a bit this morning on my lunch break. (wanted to snag my SN before someone else did) and I have to say I'm impressed. So far very little lag at all, including the n00b areas. That and they went with a distributed download for the initial patch, and it seems as if they might have done alright estimating bandwidth/demand on the first day.

Re:Oddly lag free

[Anonymous Coward]

So far very little lag at all, including the n00b areas

"n00b areas?" The game's been out one day and it already has 3l33t snobs?

Re:Oddly lag free

[llefler]

I logged in during lunch to reserve a few names. A lot of us didn't have to patch, we're using the open beta client and patched last week. I did run into one realm (Blackhand - Central) that seemed to be having trouble. Server population was low, but it was coming up Realm Full and kicked you into the queue. Either they screwed up the configuration on that realm, or they are still working on tuning.

I can't say what it's like in the game, I won't get time to play before the holiday. Judging from the final days of open beta, I would say you won't see much lag in game because they are limiting the number of players per realm.

Re:Oddly lag free

[Quikah]

They noted on the Bliz forums that they turned on queues to keep the number of players in the starting areas to a managable level. Once the players start to spread out they will drop the queues.

Pirates launches today as well..

[t0qer]

Pirates , the classic Sid Mier game launches today as well. It's a remake of the classic game.

Ummmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how to say this nicely, so here we go: I think you can say goodbye to the wife and kids FOREVER.

If any wife stays with you after a few months of gaming and paying no attention to them, they must be the best people in existence.

Please. Try to show some restraint people! You don't need to be an addict to play WoW... do you?

Re:Ummmmm

[DebianDog]

It was a joke son, don't ya get it?
--Foghorn Leghorn

Actually, my son and I get up early on weekends and play Starcraft Brood Wars for hours before breakfest.

Old game but LOVE it!

CrazyJim here

[CrazyJim1]

I love Blizzard, but WOW is nothing new.

Its swamped with quests where you seek out an object/NPC, or kill a sequence of monsters which lowers the tedium some.

The combat system involves clicking on some action keys, but isn't too complex.

Graphics are nice.

This game is one big level grind with Warcraft Lore in it. It may seem fun to some, but I was bored the whole time I betaed it. Maybe they'll introduce fun stuff down the road, but this game isn't what the market is thirsting for.

Re:CrazyJim here

[sinner0423]

Well, they're trying to fix that by incorporating PvP raid elements in to the quests. If you read this interview with the WoW quest designer, he explains how they tweaked the system due to user feedback. They cut down the amount of collection quests, and are trying for the "long haul" approach to questing.

I was in the beta test, and I took my undead mage to level 25.. Awesome game, but I believe the $15/month is too excessive. I understand what you're saying tho, but I think with the Blizzard fan base, and the stylistic approach they use, it's gonna make money no matter what.

Oh, and they fixed the lag, too..

Re:CrazyJim here

[Anonymous Coward]

> Its swamped with quests where you seek out an object/NPC, or kill a sequence of monsters which lowers the tedium some.

Fetch, Find, Fight, and Fedex are the order of the day of a great number of adventures (The Lord of the Rings? Fedex quest. Beowulf? Fight. etc. It's largely the stage productions like Shakespeare that get complex, because of their characters). There really are a limited number of things that can be done with programmatic quests that are limited in interaction and their scope, barring strong AI that can offer you true puzzles of character interaction.

This is why you're supposed to have other players to game with in the first place. Stuff like TinyPlots in MUDs, for example. Unfortunately with MMORPG's, none of the players can really set up a new adventure or get any help from the adventure designers who are too busy just keeping the gameworld running.

The market is thirsting for an entire alternate reality, which is something that probably can never be delivered. In the meantime, we have level grinds with pretty graphics.

Re:CrazyJim here

[twbecker]

You must not have played many MMOs if you think WoW is one big level grind. At least there are quests, and not just you killing 585,972 mobs to get to a high enough level that you can start in with the "real" content.

Re:CrazyJim here

[Slime-dogg]

Well, you can go fishing.

Level grinds are fun, if you're grouping with people that you like to talk to.

I don't see what the problem is. :shrug:

Re:CrazyJim here

[prell]

It seems as though the business model for MMORPGs is such that since there is an incentive to get people on the come-back, the gameplay is required to be both consistently gratifying and as time-consuming as possible. Other types of games played online seem to be similar in this regard (e.g. some shooters). I don't dig drugs: they bore me and they're not real. These games are similarly boring.

Though, given the choice I think I'd prefer to play a game -- especially an RPG -- by myself. I enjoy the seclusion, and I'd argue that these games do much better to suspend disbelief and create a world, since they don't involve people you know damn well to be living in the "real world." In that way, and especially with PKing, MMORPGs resemble giant arguments with pretty graphics rather than games.

If you want an immersive world; a game you can lose yourself in, get GTA: San Andreas. I've been impressed with it, and I've found myself playing all night, and didn't look back on it with disdain the way I look at an RPG that I know is taking advantage of my desire to gain levels. Just one way GTA:SA sucks you in is through the territory feature: you take over and maintain parts of the neighborhood, which drives you to develop a good knowledge of the streets and keeps you noticing the incredible detail packed into this game. GTA:SA also paces its features and missions in a way that honestly I did not expect, which is a welcome and frankly incredible departure from formulaic platformers and RPGs -- even the unique ones! The desire to "do your own thing" only intensifies the "reality" of this game. Last night I found myself saying "hey! Nobody fucks with CJ!" and my friend pointed out that yes, several people fuck with me. And I threw back, "yeah, but they don't usually live to tell about it."

Another good RPG out now is Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. I watched a friend play it for an hour and was sold. I went out and bought a copy yesterday. The game mechanics reflect a rethinking and back-to-basics mentality -- the features may be familiar, but they're unique in such a way that they don't just have new features tacked on; they have been reworked and reconsidered from the core assumptions. For instance, you don't really seem to have a party -- you just have Mario to focus on, and others add what they have to give, without being fully-fledged party members. This focus on Mario shows also in the items and upgrades you get. This game is also steeped in Mario history. Elements of all the Mario games (even the ones you thought only you knew about) are present in PM:TYD in very fresh and uniquely charming ways. And I'd be committing a crime if I didn't lavish praise on the wonderful writing. The humor is incredibly sharp and unexpected, and the dialogue is very sparse in exactly the right places.

Check out these two games. I highly recommend them.

Re:CrazyJim here

[vicviper]

Its swamped with quests where you seek out an object/NPC, or kill a sequence of monsters which lowers the tedium some.

http://www.progressquest.com

Enjoy :)

Re:CrazyJim here

[Anonymous Coward]

Heyas!

All you Mac Gamers looking for a Online rollplaying experience and not just eye candy see Delta Tao's Clan Lord.

Re:CrazyJim here

[dbullock]

WOW did it right.

Re:CrazyJim here

[zeno_2]

The one thing I like about WoW is that most of the classes are pretty different. An example would be, a warrior uses rage to use abilities. Rage is gained by hitting a monster, or getting hit by one. A rogue uses energy and combo points, energy just regens back normally, and combo points are used with finishing moves.

Another cool thing about warriors is that they have 3 stances, an offensive stance, defensive, and a middle one. Each of those has a type of counter attack against parry, blocks, etc. So during a fight, if you play it right, you can switch stances and counter attack the monsters, which is a lot funner then clicking auto attack on eq.

Most of the other classes are pretty standard stuff, but I still find it to be more fun then most of the other games ive played.

Also, there isn't many games out there where you have something to do at all times. There's *always* a quest or two that you can finish pretty quickly, so if you dont have hours to play you can still advance pretty good.

Im not sure really how you can break out of the "clicking buttons" for a combat system. Do you want a Dance Dance Revolution pad to dance on to do combat?

Re:CrazyJim here

[LPetrazickis]

I love Blizzard, but WOW is nothing new.

Are you saying that Diablo and StarCraft were very original? 'Cause they weren't.;)

Smooth as a babies bottom

[Moo Moo Cow of Death]

The launch was as smooth as a babies bottom for me, good times people, good times :) Loaded up good Ran good Didn't crash No lag errors or server crashes (wow) A+ launch in my book

Re:Smooth as a babies bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

PEDOPHELIA is ILLEGAL sir, and YOU are a CRIMINAL!!!11!

I am not going to buy it unless they use

[geekoid]

Steam... haha, I joke.

Great Game...but

[Anonymous Coward]

is there a shoot JFK mod, or are the targets only politically correct ones.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

If for nothing more than having heard of EVE.

I was a Beta Tester

[zx75]

I was a BETA tester for WoW since early January, pretty much one of the very first groups in after it went to Beta level. Despite the pricing issues I have with any MMORPG, WoW was a lot of fun and it is the first MMORPG that I have considered purchasing.

I haven't made my mind up yet (again, the pricing) but if you're in to that kind of thing, Blizzard has done an excellent job with WoW its nicely polished and as always its graphics are beautiful. Its a lot of fun and very addictive!

Re:I was a Beta Tester

[k_187]

I agree, I only got in on the open beta, but WoW sucked me in like few games ever have. I figure in the next 3-4 months I'll be able to buy a computer that can play it better, then I'll have no life, but I'll be able to make coats and stuff, which will be sweet.

Re:I was a Beta Tester

[Harker]

I'm curious...

Despite the pricing issues I have with any MMORPG, WoW was a lot of fun and it is the first MMORPG that I have considered purchasing.

What exactly are your issuse with pricing?

I'm not going to bash you for your opinion, but I'm genuily curious about it. Personally, I believe the monthly charge is a necessary evil in order to keep servers going, and get updated content.

Been playing MMORPG's since Nov 2000, when AC1 came out, and still play it. I plan to purchase and create an account for WoW on the 1st (payday).

H.

Re:I was a Beta Tester

[zx75]

My pricing issues are very simple. I'm a poor student who has a decent sized debt (~$14,000 Canadian). My monthly budget is entirely up to me, but if I can get away with paying $100 for food and my $375 rent I'm happy. Thus, anything that comes with a 'monthly payment' attached to use, unless its strictly necessary to have, gets dropped to the bottom of the pile.

Thats the money situation, plus the fact that I work for 4 months, then go to school for 4 months and repeat, so I do not bring in a paycheque when studying.

The real kicker is, with my studies I never know when or how much time I'm going to spend on any sort of entertainment. Last semester of school I ended up on campus working 7 days a week, 60+ hours total. That left almost no time for anything fun, and I'm certainly not going to sacrifice my studies for anything so mundane as playing a game. Thus from month to month, I never really know if I'm going to touch the thing, so a $15 USD fee each month is a really bad investment for a potentially sporadic player.

I agree that a monthly charge may be necessary, but I'm not going to be paying it if I don't have a reasonable certainty that I'm even going to use it. In the end I'd rather splurge at once and grab 2 high-quality titles at the beginning of a semester, not care about any sort of pay-to-play scheme, and just jump in when I have time. That way I have no problem with having them sit on my shelf for 2 months straight if I don't have time. But paying $15 US for the priviledge of possibly picking them up is not something I care to do.

Wow, you guys must have macros set or something!

[Onimaru]

The speed of the vitriol about the cost of online games was truly amazing! We got some speed typists here.

It's a religious debate as to whether or not it's worth it, so I won't weigh in. I'm just amazed that there were people hovering over their keyboards with "OMG I can't believe that anyone would pay $15 a month for something like this more like $0.15 twice a year is what I would pay!" in the paste buffer.

Best... MMORPG... Ever!

[couch_potato]

I participated in the open beta, and I must say, I was quite impressed. I've played EverQuest, but got sick of the grind after making level 30. I was unfortunate enough to play Anarchy Online on launch, what a nightmare that was. But once it got patched to the point of being playable, it was quite fun. However, it never really offered the community aspects that make an MMORPG worthwhile, so I gave that genre a rest.

Then, I decided to see what all the fuss was about with WoW. I downloaded the open beta client (took me only 4 days) and started playing. I was hooked right from the start. Just getting into the game was a snap, it took less than 45 seconds on my Athlon 1.4GHz, compared to several minutes for EQ and AO. Even creating my character was fun and easy to do, and once I got into the game the environments were beautiful, everything ran smooth (on my dated equipment), and the quests were easy to find and fun to complete. Not to mention the fact that grouping and making friends is a breeze. Unfortunately, the open beta ended 5 days after I finished the download, so I only made it to level 8 with my warrior (and that was with playing one hour a day).

I don't think I'll be buying the game, but the only reason for that is my addictive personality. While I never became much of an EQ addict (though I've seen some of my friends become zombie-like creatures who have sacrificed school, jobs, and even marraiges to get that piece of uber-loot), I can definately see myself getting sucked into this game, and that wouldn't be good for me, my studies, my relationship with my fiance, or our baby daughter. Otherwise, I'd probably be up to level 15 by now!

Get a free Nintendo DS! No BS! http://www.ds4free.com/default.aspx?r=64402

Re:Best... MMORPG... Ever!

[RicoX9]

...my relationship with my fiance, or our baby daughter...

Sounds like you got your priorities straight a bit late... 8-)

Good for you though. My group of friends online have been very good about my decline in gaming since my kids came along. They always make room for me on the few nights a week/month I'm able to play.

As my kids get older, I find I'm less interested in games. This coming from someone who has spent the last 20 yrs playing everything he could find. You will probably find that your kids are more interesting than the games. Maybe later when they get interested in computer games, I'll get back into gaming more so I can play with them.

--Rico

Linux native version

[Petaris]

It would be very cool to have a Linux native version of this game. I have always loved the WarCraft games and I expect this one will be no exception to that. :)

Re:Linux native version

[morbuz]

Sam Latinga, SDL's original author works for Blizzard, and Blizzard have a history of making Mac versions of their games, so they probably use OpenGL. You can always hope, but I seriously doubt it will happen. :)

Comparisons

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone played WoW and Guild Wars? I'm in the beta of Guild Wars but wasn't able to get in the beta for WoW (for obvious reasons, i.e. it requires the sacrifice of a first-born, etc.).

So, anyone who's played both, what's your opinion? I like guild wars because it's quick, in and out type of thing. I don't have to sit 4 hours to get a good group and then have them all disperse 20 minutes later (AO/DaoC anyone?)

I'd like to know how WoW currently compares, in terms of what the playstyle is all about in WoW, and whether it's something that invites obsessive gameplay. I'm rather obsessive when it comes to games; I would stay up all night playing AO for quite a while, and got sick from lack of sleep.

Guild Wars is a lot more laid back, and I seems less like a MMORPG and more like a single player game you can play with friends. Does WoW have room for that?

Re:Comparisons

[Anonymous Coward]

WoW has plenty of solo play. I only made it to level 16 during the open beta, but from what I heard from Closed Beta testers, its definately possible to solo any character up to the max level.

I found it was easy to get into quick quests and all. It doesn't make you sit around for an hour or so looking for party, as you can just do some soloing while looking for a party.

I basically got the same feeling for WoW that you got from Guild Wars. It honestly felt to me like it was more of a single player game that you were playing with a lot of other people. Grouping wasn't all that common, and most of the interaction I had from people was chatting over the general channel or maybe competing over mob pops.

Re:Comparisons

[badmammajamma]

All MMOs invite obsessive gameplay. At least the successful ones do.

My mind was eased by the beta...

[laughingcoyote]

...because I will not be supporting Blizzard in any manner whatsoever so long as they continue the bnetd case. However, I did check out the open beta (couldn't resist!) and was greatly relieved to find out the game isn't that good anyway.

Re:My mind was eased by the beta...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you forgot the r in erased.

great, but it's a MMORPG still

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, it looks really pretty. I bet the gameplay is pretty fun too. But you know what the basic problem is: the people. It doesn't matter what kind of look and feel they put into it when the world's largely populated by screaming frustrated adolescent asshats who use "Jew" as an insult, "U" as a pronoun, and punctuate every sentence with "LOL"

Even if one just avoids people like that and approaches it from a pure gameplay point (that is, game mechanics over character, an attitude that can better bear the aforementioned asshats), you still end up playing in one overall league, and that's the power gaming munchkins who squeeze every bit of actual fun out of the gaming experience by very quickly reducing it all to cost/benefit ratios of weapon/spell damage outputs and multipliers, often to the point of converging on a single attack or combo. (Try playing UO without every other bark being "Corp Por")

To say nothing of the soviet-style queueing up (enough with the soviet russia jokes) at spawn points so that your character may have their standardized ration of fun ... tho perhaps that's just EQ.

MMORPG's suck, and it's the players that make it so.

Re:great, but it's a MMORPG still

[badmammajamma]

It's hard to take you seriously when you complain about using "U" as a pronoun, etc. when you use the term "asshat".

Re:great, but it's a MMORPG still

[Achoi77]

Considering all your concerns, the WoW gameplay mechanics almost nullifies your 'people are idiots' statement. Almost all the people I've met as allies were pretty civil, but I'm curious as to that because it was a beta test, but we'll have to see.. In any case, there is no real necessity for selfish jerks to lash out at others because the game is extremely geared toward the individual gameplay. In fact, concernes of this gameplay mechanic brought up the possbility that partying might become unwelcome and eventually obsolete.

Another point is that while gear DOES matter on your effectiveness, it doesn't FEEL that way. That is extremely important to me, because I don't have to be in a constant state of 'gear envy' and thinking that I need to keep killing in hopes for that 'uber lewt'. All that gear that I wore was done from the quests that I've completed by myself. That gear was hard earned and made me proud to wear it. Sure, there will be those powergamers that will only go for the best, but fortunately the game doesn't cater to only those that play that way.

The kicker is of course the pvp aspect. If you are the hoard, you can't even communicate with the anybody in the alliance EVEN if you wanted to. This brings on the aspect of the enemy race being simply an evil creature you need to destroy. And of course they think likewise of you. It's a constant state of war, and I wasn't truly hooked on this game untill I was part of a raid party of 40 rushing headlong towards an enemy raid party of 40.

It's fun.

Re:great, but it's a MMORPG still

[kwerle]

Even if one just avoids people like that ... you still end up playing in one overall league, and that's the power gaming munchkins who squeeze every bit of actual fun out of the gaming experience by very quickly reducing it all to cost/benefit ratios of weapon/spell damage outputs and multipliers, often to the point of converging on a single attack or combo. (Try playing UO without every other bark being "Corp Por")

You can choose to play with those folks or ignore them. There is very very little resource competition in WoW. Really, the best way to go is to find a guild of like-minded folks and stick with them.

To say nothing of the soviet-style queueing up (enough with the soviet russia jokes) at spawn points so that your character may have their standardized ration of fun ... tho perhaps that's just EQ.

This is ALMOST never a problem because ALMOST all quest targets are either plentiful or are in an instance dungeon. When it does happen, it can be annoying - but it is the mark of the rarity of the problem in that it annoys me so much the few times it happens.

In those cases, I'd usually just wait until I was logged in at an unpopular time to do that particular quest.

My WoW experience

[badmammajamma]

I got the opportunity to play WoW in the open beta. I've played many MMOs at least to some degree so I know the genre well. In the case of EQ, I played for 3.5 years.

After playing several different race/class combinations in WoW, I came to the conclusion that it's a completely derivitive work in every way but the artistry of the graphics. There is nothing new in this game. Everything I did in EQ 5 years ago is pretty much replicated in some fashion in WoW. Sure, skills are handled differently but not in any new or interesting way that hasn't been done before. There's tons of quests but all the ones I've seen were fedex style or gofer style quests. The game plays well and it functioned pretty flawlessly for the limited amount of time the open beta ran. My only complaint was that it was a bit laggy.

Presuming I didn't care it was completely derivitive and bereft of any real creativity, it has one glaring flaw: at least for the time being, you can only join servers that are in the region you live in. Apparently this was done for performance reasons. I guess Blizzard doesn't care that guilds from other MMOs might be interested in switching to WoW and that those guilds might be composed of people from all over the country or even the world. Frankly, this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of being done in an MMO. It immediately writes the game off for thousands of people.

Maybe I expected more of Blizzard than a well executed rehash of what's already been done many times before but I've always liked Blizzard games...until now. Apparently, the people who made Blizzard great are the ones who left the company or perhaps they lost their soul when they sold out to a large multinational conglomerate. Either way it's really sad.

Re:My WoW experience

[pjludlow]

You know, Blizzard does not stop you from logging on to a server in a different time zone. I am in MST and in the open beta played mostly PST. However, i'm in a guild now and we play CST because there are quite a few players on the east coast (so we compromised time zones). You can sign up wherever you want it is not a problem. So now disregard half of your post and that is what you have to say.

Re:My WoW experience

[Paleomacus]

at least for the time being, you can only join servers that are in the region you live in

Bull shit. Look at the bottom of the server selection screen. Those tabs let you choose your region. You can create a character on any of them.

Re:My WoW experience

[kylector]

He's talking about countries. If I live in the United States and know someone that lives in Europe, we can't play together.

Re:My WoW experience

[badmammajamma]

So I guess I can play with my guildies so long as I don't give a shit about performance? Afterall, that was the reason they gave for setting it up that way.

Re:My WoW experience

[flibuste]

Now that sucks. Having known that before, I would not have pre-ordered...All my friends are not around and that was the MAIN point of buying something like WOW.

Geee..

Re:My WoW experience

[oldManSquad]

According to the information at the end of the european press release:,

"For those European gamers still wishing to play with their American friends on the North American servers, and vice versa, Blizzard will provide a means to make this possible after the European launch."

So that part of your criticism is moot.

btw, I'm one of the many disappointed Europeans (UK) hoping to import, but now must wait for "early next year release" due to this regional lockout, bah! Though it doesn't matter too much, I still got HL2/CStrike:Source and GTA Andreas to waste my time on till then. :)

Re:My WoW experience

[glowimperial]

You can join any of the servers. They do reccomend servers in your region to you though. My guild has members in more than a dozen timezones and we are having no problem getting on the same server.

Re:My WoW experience

[gclef]

What he's referring to is the "localizing" of servers by major geographic area...North America versus Europe, for example. Blizzard has stated quite clearly that the only way to get onto the North American servers is to have a North American billing address (australia is, I believe the exception, as they're being considered North American).

Rumor has it that this is being forced on them by Vivendi, but that's entirely speculation. The fact is, they've said that you have to have a local billing address to get to the servers, and they do not want people crossing areas.

Re:My WoW experience

[kylector]

Well the maybe-good news is that there are a few exceptions to this with Australia and one or two other countries, I think. But still a bummer for sure.

Re:My WoW experience

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if this region separation is true, since I don't play the game, but if it is the real reason is probably racism. In Diablo 2, when the Koreans started playing on US servers in large numbers, a lot of people on both sides spent more time harrassing the foreigners and making racist rants than playing. I've seen the same phenomenon in several other games. Basically, any time you mix any two groups that don't share a common language, the result will be very ugly and very offensive. Blizzard has a huge following in Korea, and MMORPGs are social games, so they really don't want their servers devolving into that.

No no, it's me also.

[Nijika]

I think they're all far too expensive. Second Life has a $9.95 one time fee, and you can kinda consider that a MMORPG.

Not saying all MMORPGs have to have a one time fee, that's not doable, but it should be cheaper at least than my crazy webhosting deal I get for like $7 a month. There needs to be an MMORPG price war, but I don't know how one would be initiated.

Quick coffee crazed idea; but I'd love to see a MMORPG client and server frameworkd developed under the GPL, and then the servers would be run by third parties who charge for access.

Re:No no, it's me also.

[insensitive claude]

...I'd love to see a MMORPG client and server frameworkd developed under the GPL...

It's coming, albeit slowly...

Re:No no, it's me also.

[Minwee]

There is also Worldforge, a GPLed MMORPG client and server framework.

Re:No no, it's me also.

[Anonymous Coward]

Worldforge has been around for something like 8 years and has produced basically nada, not one playable game. Anyone still productive in that community is gone, the leaders long before that, and the last people left just can't bear to turn out the lights.

Wake up. Worldforge will never produce anything.

Re:No no, it's me also.

[Anonymous Coward]

The price war will be starting shortly...

Guild Wars, for instance, is an MMORPG that has no monthly subscription price. You buy the media, and you're in.

I had the chance to play this in Beta test early on and I've got to say, it looks like it's going to be a helluva game.

Re:No no, it's me also.

[MaineCoon]

You can't really consider Second Life in the same league as traditional MMORPGs.

Second Life's content is 99% player-made, and if you actually want things like land, which is important to establish an actual presence in game, you have to pay a monthly fee that increases with the amount of land; some people are paying $200/mth or more for private islands. That flat fee is for a very limiting account meant to hook you until you are ready to pay more.

In addition, it's really just a socialization environment. There is almost no combat (well, there sort of is, but it's very limited, restricted to certain areas, has barely any participants, and nothing like a regular MMORPG).

SL is mostly full of people just playing Bingo, slot machines, dancing and socializing, or cybering (lots of Mature zones and porn clubs/avatars/etc). The remainder are people who like to make things using the built in modelling and scripting systems.

Re:No no, it's me also.

[MaineCoon]

As a followup, going by the costs...

For every 256x256m "sim" in SL... the users are paying between $200/mth (cheapest, 65,768m^2 land tier) and $1280 (128 people paying the $10/mth minimum to own land which comes with a 'free' 512m^2).

In addition, unless you pay the monthly fee, you get 1/10th the normal weekly 'stipend' of game money ($50/week). Paying subscribers get $500/week.

Re:No no, it's me also.

[Cromac]

Quick coffee crazed idea; but I'd love to see a MMORPG client and server frameworkd developed under the GPL, and then the servers would be run by third parties who charge for access.

Check Sourceforge, there are several being worked on, I'm sure they could use the help.

Re:No no, it's me also.

[Incoherent07]

Guild Wars is only an MMORPG in the loosest sense of the term. The game setup is closer to Diablo 2 than EQ or WoW. (I'm pretty sure even the GW devs don't use that specific acronym.)

Midnight Release Party

[Valdier]

I foolishly met up with friends last night who were at the midnight release at the Fountain Valley Fry's.

I arrived right about midnight, but they had already been standing in line for roughly 2 1/2 hours. The line wrapped once around the entire building, then again around the outside of the parking lot, and then went down the street for roughly a block.

There was a food truck, a radio station was there broadcasting music...

From the point where I got in, we didn't get into the store until 3am. There were at my guess... 5,000 - 10,000 people waiting in line. At one point they brought in a moving truck filled with more copies to meet the demand, and then they still ran out of collectors edition copies. Luckily for some there were guys scalping them in line...

Re:Midnight Release Party

[Anonymous Coward]

Luckily for some there were guys scalping them in line...

After those were gone, they scalped the serial numbers from those open/resealed boxes.

Re:Midnight Release Party

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha! That's great! I could just see some poor fag getting home after waiting 10 hours in line just to get the message "CD-Key already in use".

Let's celebrate!

[centauri]

Ach, alright! Tilt one back wi' me, laddie!

Anybody else out there...

[Bz3rk]

still waiting for Starcraft 2

Re:Why pay for a computer and a net connection?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am having just as much fun playing with a rock and stick.

Re:When does it come out for consoles? Yeah, I kno

[tukkayoot]

One of the things I hated about Final Fantasy XI is that they seemed intent on keeping the PC client crippled to keep it in line with the PS2 client. If porting WoW to a console means making the same compromise, I'd rather leave consoles out. Final Fantasy XI has (or at least had, at the time I quit) the absolute worst interface of any MMO I've played or investigated, probably due in part to the fact that it's a console game.

The system requirements for WoW aren't really that bad, which is one of the reasons a lot of my friends I decided to move to it instead of EQ2. From their FAQ:

* 800 MHz or higher CPU
* 256 MB or more of RAM
* 32 MB 3D graphics card with hardware transform and lighting, such as GeForce 2 or better
* 4 GB or more of available hard drive space
* DirectX® 9.0c or above
* A 56k or higher modem with an Internet connection

That's pretty modest. A friend of mine who got in on the open beta told me that when he tried to install the client, it warned him that his system may not meet the requirements (I'm not sure what his system specs are). He installed it anyway, and found that frame rates were very tolerable, said the only time it was bad was during the opening cutscene. He said he didn't notice any of the graphics lag that he noticed in many areas of EverQuest.

Re:Keep yer conscience clean

[WPIDalamar]

So clearly the original poster wasn't an EQ player. Compared to sony, blizzard is angelic.

Slashdot slashdotted?

[kaustik]

Completely off topic, so feel free to mod me down, but...

What's the deal with Slashdot right now? I am getting time-outs and 503 errors trying to browse. Maybe someone is getting revenge by linking from a more popular site, like... I don't know. Porn?

Re:Why pay for a computer and a net connection?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am having just as much fun playing with a rock and stick.

Rock and stick is too hard to manage. You have to keep track of the rock, but now where's the stick, and believe me after a short while it gets very confusing very quickly. These days, I prefer just stick.

Game/Time Cards...

[antdude]

Don't forget you can get these if you don't want to pay online especially for young people who don't have credit cards or parents won't let them. Ask your friends, family members, etc. for them as Christmas and birthday gifts.

EB = $29.99
Walmart = $29.82

Are there any more U.S. stores that sell these that I didn't list?

Re:Wow, you guys must have macros set or something

[happyfrogcow]

$15 is a lot if you are a casual gamer.

I would love to be a casual WoW player, but only if it were something in the range of $5-$7, or an hourly rate that would, if used as as much as the average player, would equal out to $15/month. So if the average player plays 40 hours a month, i pay $0.38/hour or so.

Expensive? Bah!

[kenp2002]

Ok for those who complain lets try something few understand, PERSPECTIVE.

1 Movie: $9
1 Popcorn and Soda: $9
Movie Runs 2 hours.
That's $9 an hour for entertainment.

Assume for the moment you play an online game 1 hour a day on average.

$15 dollars a month or $15 dollars for $30 hours.
That's about 50 cents an hour. .50 9.00 last I checked.

Now lets add in your DSL\CAble Bill to help this out.

$60 dollars a month or about $2.00 an hour to play. Still cheaper then a movie.

To further the study you could factor your inital $50 purchase of the game over, say 2 years to better tune this.

Even at $100 dollars a month that is about $3.40 per hour and is still cheaper then going to the movies. And thats assuming you can get in and out of the theater for only $18 bucks.

But, to be fair and balanced, a good quality basketball, football, or baseball setup can run you a 1 time $80 bucks and factoring that over a 2 year period throwing the old pig skin, playing softball, or doing a little boot hockey can be a hella cheaper then a video game.

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[jasonmicron]

You're not taking into account the fact that they don't exactly need all of that money. The pricing is a standard price based on market standards, not actual need. I think all MMORPG games are entirely too expensive. I would seriously like to know where this money goes but as they are private companies no one will ever know.

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

Where does the money go?

* To pay off the pro-rated depreciation on the hundreds if not thousands of servers the company has had to buy to support the various game worlds, plus at least one test server and one development server.

* To pay for the monthly bandwidth bills

* To pay the salaries of the game developers, artists and 3D modelers who are developing new content

* To pay the salaries of the GMs (in game tech-support people) who have to be online for usually 16 hours per day (not usually the same GM for 16 hours straight).

* To pay the salary of the legal team that is ramping up to sue the first website to try and sell in-game items and money

* To pay the salary of the support operators who answer the phone when you call with billing issues

* To pay off the Ferrari that the lead guys are driving back and forth to work - in 2nd gear - with the parking brake on.

Having been a part of the in-game tech support crew for two different games, you would be surprised at how much backend work there is to support an ongoing game like this.

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[kenp2002]

The costs of operation are huge. Everquest financially was only pulling about 5-5.25% margin on the monthly based on estimates. Mythic with DAOC is only pulling down 7-9% profit margin by the last figures I saw. Just look up the monthly costs for some of those optical carrier lines and your best guess on hardware reqs. MMORPGS draw a huge amount of capital on but the operational costs are massive. The server hardware, colocation fees, customer service staff, programmers, licensing fees, bandwidth, maintenance contracts, royalty fees, distribution fees, marketing, etc end up nickle and diming you to death. You can make a game for 5 million but you end up spending 10 million to distribute and promote it. With DAOC using Numeric Designs front end (The same one used for Morrowind) had a licensing fee that, when I inquired about it, made me laugh. The $50,000 front against pending royalties was hillarious and Big World's licensing was just shy of absurde for an engine. The way games are sold the $50 for the box sales large go to distribution channels. At least 50% of the monthly subscription fee is going to be burned in operations. Operational costs aside you also need to bank funds for further expansions and financial outlays. Just because a company posts 1 million in profit doesn't mean they have 1 million to "play" with. That "profit" may already be spent or at the very least ear-marked. Also that profit may get ate offsetting a loss from a previous project. I've worked with companies that made millions yet didn't have a dime to their name due to these types of costs.

There are a plethora of business factors in developing a service and product. Remember that there are two very different items you buy. You buy the game and subscribe to a service. There are very different business beasts and are as closely related as apples and lava, from a business standpoint at least. The game side can post a decent profit but the service side, the measure of profit, is very different. You'd be better off comparing the service side (specifically the $15 a month) to say a resturant rather then a manufacturing sample.

They'll need every penny they can get. Underfunded services die and wither easy.

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[Slime-dogg]

But, to be fair and balanced, a good quality basketball, football, or baseball setup can run you a 1 time $80 bucks and factoring that over a 2 year period throwing the old pig skin, playing softball, or doing a little boot hockey can be a hella cheaper then a video game.

Are you suggesting that we have to go.... outside?

Ick.

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[Epistax]

The basis of all that is that movies are a good deal. Ooops, huh?

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[Jimmy King]

They are a company. Their primary goal is to make as much money as possible. If you know of a company that says "Well, we COULD earn $XXXX dollars, but we really only need half of that to live, so lets drop our prices" please inform me so that I can be sure not to ever buy their stock. To put it into a slightly different light, do you "need" as much money as your job pays you? Perhaps you do, but I could certainly get by on far less and have, but we accept our pay. Why? Because they are willing to pay us that and we work our jobs to earn as much money as we possibly can (or at least I do), not the warm fuzzy feeling from giving our employers a good deal on our hard work.

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[Anonymous Coward]

>Are you suggesting that we have to go.... outside?

What the hell is this "outside" thing that people keep talking about?

Does it have a USB connector?

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[Austerity Empowers]

You're a public person, I can't take a look at your bank account and figure out how much money you're making. Similarly you have no business snooping on corporation business transactions. It's none of your business.

All that is important is this: They can choose any pricing model they want, and charge price they want. They're in business to make money so:

1) If the price is higher than the consumer will pay, the consumer will not buy.

2) If not enough consumers are buying, Blizzard will drop the price until such a time as the earnings cannot sustain the business. (Note: This may be different than "operate at cost", companies do not operate at cost, they operate for profit. If they do not get a desired profit margin, they may STILL fold.)

3) If not enough buy even at the minimum price, Blizzard will then attempt to sell the product to someone who may be able to operate on reduced earnings (perhaps a company that will operate on a lower profit margin, or who will cut costs/quality, etc.)

4) Failling that, they will cancel the product rather than operate inconsistently with investor expectations.

All I can say is feel free not to pay, that's the best way to get them to drop the cost.

I think believing that WoW could operate without a montly fee is an uninformed opinion. I'm interested in hearing suggestions on how such a game could be made.

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[Jjeff1]

DAoC has a command, called /played, that shows you total play time for a given character.
My total is over 70 days, that's 1680 hours since I started playing the game a few years ago. So my cost is what? 26 cents per hour?

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[cicatrix1]

I'm at 72 days on my FFXI character. That's in one year! Damn!

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[Anonymous Coward]

ya, i play 8 hours a day 5 days a week (4 before work, 4 after). and i try to get 8 hours on saturday.

for me thats $0.07 an hour if i play a lot that week

if i play 4 hours a day 7 days a week (11pm to 3am :) , i'll only pay 12c a day.

i drop more money than that in the seats of my car every day.

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[ImpTech]

> Assume for the moment you play an online game 1 hour a day on average.

I think a lot of the people who complain about pricing probably do so because they don't want to play that much. Personally, I'd probably average 2 hours a week, which is why I won't be buying this anytime soon.

> To further the study you could factor your inital $50 purchase of the game over, say 2 years to better tune this.

The people who complain about the pricing probably don't play the game for two years either, so that $50 upfront tends to be pretty painful. I won't even get into the present/future worth analysis.

You also fail to account for the cost of the computer itself in any way. Obviously a single game isn't solely responsible for the whole pricetag, but it definitely contributes.

Personally, I think the lesson here is that movies are too damn expensive.

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[StikyPad]

Your comparison isn't really accurate.. you're comparing 30hrs a month to 2hrs a month. Games are subscriptions, movies are, well, pay per view. A comparison to cable would be a little more accurate while still proving your point.

From my experience though, people tend to trade spending money for spending time, and my time is a lot more valuable than an MMORPG requires, or, let's say "urges," you to play. After having played EQ to varying degrees over the past four years, I can definately say that it's not a constructive activity. It doesn't even fuel imagination or problem-solving per se, and has much more in common with gambling than it does with other single or multiplayer games. IE, there is no logical "end," to the game, it's a faux social activity, and it promises rewards while they take your money. Among high-level players, there's a high amount of burnout and dissatisfaction, supposedly because of the poor quality of the "end-game," but in reality it's because they've invested literally months and months (or years and years) of time playing, only to realize they've been chasing shadows.

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[Anonymous Coward]

That long in that game? Wow, you're quite the masochist.

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[Ohreally_factor]

* To pay the salary of the legal team that is ramping up to sue the first website to try and sell in-game items and money

If they were smart, they'd incorporate a Lawyer class into the game that was willing to work on contingency based on the loot being sold through such websites. =)

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[Negatyfus]

Bah, get over it already. All those people complaining about the lack of an "end-game" or the quality of the game they are played-- OMG, I'M NEVAR GONNA TOUCH ANOTHER PRODUCT FROM COMPANY X!!1-- need to be reminded of the countless hours THEY chose to put into the game and the fun they supposedly had from that experience.

If you've spent months in a game only to torture yourself expecting something to somehow get better somewhere along the line, you are an idiot.

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[Fr05t]

I've played FFXI for the last 2 years (including the beta) and before that I use to blow through 120-140 a month (Canadian) on games easy. I haven't figured out how much I've saved by switching to the MMORPG type game but it's a lot.

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

How about a Vigilante class that awards XP for breaking into the homes and businesses of the people doing the selling and, uh, erm... putting an end to their ways... yeah, that's it.

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[Anonymous Coward]

For the price of one hour in an MMORPG, you could feed a child for a week.

Re:Expensive? Bah!

[FurryFeet]

Are you suggesting that we have to go.... outside?

You should try it sometimes. I did once. The graphics are absolutely amazing, textures look great, and I don't know what kind of hardware they use, but I never experienced any slowdowns.
The gameplay sucks, tough.

Re:Wow, you guys must have macros set or something

[Anonymous Coward]

The "magic" behind such posts is here.

My Question: Did they fix the AMD Bug (Error #132)

[SuperficialRhyme]

At least 2-3 times per day the beta would crash for me with an Error # 132. It seems this error occured most frequently on those computers with AMD Athlon (not only the 64 bit versions though) chips. There were rare reports of it on P4 chips but the overwhelming majority of the times it was on AMD chips.

That is the one thing keeping me from buying the game. It's so annoying to have it crash 2-3 times in a row in the same area (frequently resulting in death, as your character stays in the same spot in the game world and does NOT leave the server until you attempt to rejoin).

Blizzard

[robpoe]

As bad as they've let Diablo II, LOD get - I will NOT purchase another Blizzard game, as long as I shall live unless they can prove to me that

1) charging for the games will eliminate
a) spam bots
b) duping
c) botting
d) general cheating

2) they will keep the community informed
3) they will update and fix bugs on a timely manner

Re:Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude.

Diablo II: LOD is OLD.

And you don't pay a monthly fee for the b.net service.

Stop crying.

Re:Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

You have got to be the dumbest mother fucker on slashdot. Seriuosly, I'm so stunned at the stupidity of your reasons for not supporting Blizzard that I can't even think of a good insult for you other than "you are one dumb mother fucker".

Your parents should have aborted you.

Re:Blizzard

[robpoe]

At least I'm brave enough to not post as an A/C.

Diablo LOD has ALWAYS been ignored for the most part by Blizzard. How long did everyone wait for the 1.10 patch? My point. How much will they put in to WoW? I dont know but i'm not wasting my money to find out.

Coward.

Re:Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

So you don't think it's important to reduce cheating in an online multiplayer game? You are even dumber than the dumbest mother fucker on slashdot. You're so stupid, a dead brick could outsmart you in its sleep. You parents would have aborted you, but they committed suicide first instead. You're probably only spewing this rancid crap of a post because you cheated in diablo 2 and want to cheat in warcraft.

Re:Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

Diablo II was overrun with cheaters when it was NEW. There was a lot of cheating before the expansion came out. No, you don't pay a monthly fee, but it remains to be seen whether a monthly fee will be enough to make Blizzard get their act together.

Why don't you shut up and stop making pointless, irrelevant posts, "Dude".

Re:Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

you are also extremely dumb. you are so dumb, you are dumb. and dumb you are that dumb you are. wow i am dumb. wow you are dumb. wow this is dumb. we all live in a dumb dumb dumb world. dumb. dumb. I like that word.

Re:Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

#1 reason for not playing blizzard's bnet crap?

Avoiding online shit-heads like the parent poster!!

Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[kindbud]

Bring back permanent character death, and I'm interested again. Permanent character death is the solution to everything that sucks about modern MMORPG. If a future game brings back permanent character death, that game will not need to have the level-grind. That game will not have so many campers for valuable item drops.

Hell, just bring back PvP with no safe zones outside towns and no level restrictions (save for the lowest of ultra-newbs who've just started), and that'll be a huge improvement.

I haven't seen anything in WoW that isn't there to appease the whiny brats who can't stand actually having anything in the game at-risk.

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, all I need to do is use this spell and I'll win this duel, and...

*** CONNECTION TO SERVER LOST ***

Huh?

*** RECONNECTING ***

*** YOUR CHARACTER HAS DIED. WOULD YOU LIKE TO CREATE A NEW ONE? (Y/N) *** ...

Yeah, that sounds like a ton of fun. Definitely would solve the problem of people playing them.

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to catering to the retards that think it's fun to have no life, play an MMO all day, and simply flat-out play to ruin the fun for the rest of us that play a few hours a week.

Yes, I think that was tried for awhile on Dark Age of Camelot -- Mordred and Andred. After the first week, each server's population was 10% of the average population of the non-asshole servers.

I read that article as well. Perma-death can be incorporated into a game, as long as sound game-theory fundamentals are observed. E.g.: the normal expected payoff from killing someone should be very negative. Conditions should also be put into place where people can put themselves into extremely risky situations and killing someone else's character can result in a large positive payoff, but only after extensive playtime.

Perma-death is (financially) incompatible with level-grinding MMOs where large-scale PvP occurs.

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[Daoenti]

I honestly think they should do something like this with WoW, only maybe on a per-server basis. As it is now they have PvP, PvE, and RP servers.

They could easily tag a few of them as 'Hardcore' servers (to use Blizzard terminology from Diablo II) and introduce Perma-death into the game. I'd keep a character on those servers, just for the fun of it.

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[_xeno_]

There already exist multiplayer games that are permadeath. We call them "first person shooters."

Seriously, think about the type of gameplay that you wind up with if your character can die permanently. First of all, how many games can you think of that actually have permanent death? There aren't many...

About the only ones I can come up with are multiplayer FPS, multiplayer RTS, and puzzle games like Tetris. In those games, once you lose, your "character" is dead and you have to restart from scratch. In every other game I can think of, you can "resurrect" your character in some way. Most games accomplish this with a "save" feature or a "continue" feature.

So, assume we have a MMORPG with permanent death. And you want PVP. What style gameplay does that sound like? Sounds a lot like classic deathmatch to me. You're not roleplaying - you're just killing stuff. You can't really do quests, since there's a good chance you'll be forced to start over at some point. You're always risking being stuck back at the beginning.

Some of the most frusterating games out there are frusterating because there's some really large challenge in them, which is proceeded by a long stretch of fairly easy gameplay where you can't resume. So you wind up spending 2 minutes each attempt redoing the easy section and then 10 seconds practicing the hard section before starting over again. Those 2 minutes become very tedious, very fast. You've already done them... why do them again?

FPSs solve that problem by allowing you to very quickly regain your status. RTSs solve it by having people play "matches" on different maps. (And still, I usually find the first 2-5 minutes of most RTS games really tedious because the initial base building is almost always identical.) How do you plan to solve that in an MMORPG setting? The main point behind these games is to build a character up. If you take out that aspect to have permanent death, then it isn't really an MMORPG any more, it's something else.

The only way I can see permadeath working in an MMORPG is to basically change it into a FPS. Except instead of "first person" it would be "third person." :)

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's a good plan. Lets make the game a free for all for all the griefers and make it so that the griefers can actually permanently kill off your days and days of effort. Nice idea. Idiot.

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[Pinkoir]

Kindbud the game you are looking for is called EVE. There is nowhere in the game where you cannot shoot at another player but if you do it in civilised areas you draw an NPC police response. If you have an inter-corp war going on you can PvP with your enemies anywhere. Player vs Player politics are one of the main activity drivers in the game with major battles being covered on the main news-page of the log-in screen. There isn't perma-death in the sense you refer to but the death penalty is very steep. Since all skill training occurs in real-time there is no "level-grind" except what is needed to make money to buy stuff. I could go on for hours about all the great features of the game but then my co-workers would get suspicious of what I was typing.

-Pinkoir

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[Kindaian]

No matter what you invent to add in the game to restrict it...

There will always exist power players, specially if they are students with too many hours in front of the computer day after day!

I played eq for more time then i remember, and yes, i liked it until the power gamers pushed the game so much forward that sony made patch after patch just to keep the content balanced for those power pushers. Of course, the casual players like me, where... overrun... in the process...

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[Dirtside]

Permanent character death is the solution to everything that sucks about modern MMORPG.

Yeah, like having a significant number of customers who actually want to play the game.

I haven't seen anything in WoW that isn't there to appease the whiny brats who can't stand actually having anything in the game at-risk.

We play games for fun, numbnuts. Life already has enough risk, suffering, and loss.

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[thpr]

Bring back permanent character death, and I'm interested again

Great, just don't make me pay for it. Because if I'm spending money on it, I darn well don't want to lose my investment because some idiot who enjoys the thrill hunted me down and PvP'd me to death. It's not whining, it's about cooperating with other people, not competition to be 'cool' (stress the quotes) and see how many others you can push down to make yourself look better.

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[Hypnocraze]

I can't agree more to the perma death. I have played many of the MMORPG's. Personally, What would also be a solution is once one of your characters on your account becomes a "PKer" EVERY character will become a PKer and have to deal with the same justice . I remember to my first days of UO. Several buddies of mine and I were in Covetous and a group of pks on horseback came rolling through. My heart raced I tried to fight and tried to think of someway to win. We lost. But I came back with a vengance later on. So I can say, the randomness provided by players Is certain a welcome change to the level grind of the average MMORPG now.

DAoC had a level of this involved with the introduction of the wilderness areas where you would be leveling and a group would attack. Granted it was at bad times... i.e. just pulling mobs. But if you COMMUNICATE with your team you can turn the fight around on the attackers.

Now lets move forward a little from UO to AC, Darktide server. Many say it was chaos, but those who truely were involved on the server saw the political face change from day to day until all of the lemmings wanted a piece of the action and all hope under tha same tag so the wouldn't pk'd. Thus the infamous BLOOD was formed. I have to give the guys props though.

Sadly, You have so many people that lack what it really takes to survive in a pvp world all banding together to take on those who could careless if they are outnumbered or out gunned.

I could go into a huge discussion on pvp in MMORPG's but as was stated before... Perma death would be a welcome change. Even with technology being some what freakish at times. LD's server crashes and such. This is where MMORPG companies don't want to take on the responsibilty of creating a solid game on release. Don't take me as saying they are soley responsible. Lord knows I have walkied many people through reloading their systems because they didn't load Windows > Chipset drivers > DirectX > Vid drivers > then everything else. So many don't remember the first days of AGp support with WIN 95 and all the headaches and that was the formula and still is to this day.

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[Anonymous Coward]

somebodys never played nethack, or any other roguelikes for that matter.

i cant think of a single roguelike that *doesnt* have perma-death. Its pretty much a given in the genre.

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[Nutcase]

roguelikes such as nethack create the dungeon randomly each time, and are single player. This ensures that death is essentially your own fault, and that the initial grind doesnt get old (as you are always exploring a new layout)

MMORPGs can't randomly generate because multiple people are there, and their entire world cant rearrange when you spawn a new character. Thus the initial bits would get very old very fast.

Plus, in multiplayer, your death may not be your fault. Which frankly, would make perma-death suck.

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[kindbud]

First of all, how many games can you think of that actually have permanent death? There aren't many...

Every MUD I've ever played had it. Only when people started paying for gameplay did they start to think that their digital character had some sort of "value" that had to be preserved by the game publisher, or else.

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[kindbud]

Kindbud the game you are looking for is called EVE.

Yep. Been there, done that, played it, liked it, got tired of it, played something else for a while. I may revisit it and play some more now that the new expansion is out.

I also still login to Meridian 59 hosted by NearDeathStudios.com every now and then, and build up a PK character just for fun. All the good players love chasing down a PK criminal. M59 doesn't have permadeath, but the PVP was great!

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[kindbud]

We play games for fun, numbnuts. Life already has enough risk, suffering, and loss.

Life has way more tedious grinds. And just like I said in another reply, here you are assigning some kind of "value" to an imaginary digital life, demanding that the game publishers protect your "investment." Oh, brother!

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[kindbud]

Well, thank you for not flaming me to death because I don't agree that level 60 characters are worth preserving at the expense of everything else in a damn game. There seem to be very few of us who feel that way anymore.

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[Minna Kirai]

Every MUD I've ever played had it. Only when people started paying for

Then you didn't play many MUDs. In around 1990 it was common for slain characters to be immediately revived in the town temple. All equipment was left behind with the corpse (you got a free robe to wear), and could probably be retrived.

Bizarrely, the corpse remained as an object, and you could collect pieces of it, such as to carry around your own head...

Re:Sick of EQ-style MMORPG

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple: Push back.

Re:When does it come out for consoles? Yeah, I kno

[wpoitras]

It designed for a PC, so it won't be coming out for a PS2 or XBox. FFXI was designed for the PS2 first, then ported to the PC.

Re:I for one...

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying playing before you pigeonhole a game. This is as different from EQ as half-life is from Quake.

Same genre, different experience.

Oh they're going to make money

[CrazyJim1]

You're right. Blizzard fans rave for content, and probably won't notice the grind. I noticed the grind from like level 5.

Just frustrates me that no one is breaking the MMORPG mold and trying new things. Theres a ton of things you could do with a MMORPG to make it fun and draw in customers that aren't in the market yet. Especially user created content(lots of time on your hands = creativity).Its just like Street Fighter 2's old popularity, if you make a killer game, people will turn out in droves for it. And a MMORPG should be fun for like 5-10 years. Ah screw it, I won't get into it, I could write a novel on this stuff.

I guess the game I am most awaiting from Blizzard is Starcraft 2.

Re:Oh they're going to make money

[AsbestosRush]

I'm sorry then, for IIRC, a Blizzard rep said that StarCraft 2 isn't going to happen.

Re:Oh they're going to make money

[kallisti]

Just frustrates me that no one is breaking the MMORPG mold and trying new things.

there, are a few who are trying. Its just that the ridiculous up-front costs make it hard to attract the money.

Re:Oh they're going to make money

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to try something different, check out Planetside from SOE. I have to say, I just picked up the Aftershock expansion (more like a bundle of the orginal and first expansion) for twenty bucks, and for that it gives you 30 days trial. You can't go wrong - I'd spend more than that at the movies with my wife in one night.

The learning curve is a bit steep, but it's a neat combination of twitch, tactics, and strategy. So far I'm enjoying it. I think the monthly cost is $13.

It's not everything, but it's certainly different. It's definitely much more exciting than everquest, SWG, or their ilk.

Re:Oh they're going to make money

[k_187]

Yes, but I've also seen an interview with somebody at Blizzard that said (and I'm pretty sure this is an exact quote): "We promise to do a Starcraft 2 at some point" So who knows. If they ever do World of Starcraft, I'll just have to move to a monastery somewhere.

MMORPG for people with a life

[Cat_Byte]

What they need is a game like this with VERY fast leveling but only one life. You could play one day, build up, PVP, etc...then start again next time after you die. Whacking bunnies or bats for weeks at a time takes too much of a chunk out of my life. I keep hearing how people get sucked into games like this so deep that they neglect family, friends, a life, and just stay locked in a room for days playing. At least having a fast-level server as an option would bring people like me into the game and probably salvage a few marriages/relationships at the same time.

Re:MMORPG for people with a life

[dead sun]

There's a single player version of the game you just described. It's called Nethack.

And no, Nethack addiction is not easy to deal with. There's a reason I don't install it on my machine unless I see a period of months with nothing to do.

Re:MMORPG for people with a life

[fishbowl]

"There's a single player version of the game you just described. It's called Nethack."

Other games just come and go.

Re:MMORPG for people with a life

[darkwing_bmf]

If you are in to FPSs, try Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. It has level up elements, but once the server finishes rotating through the maps, everyone gets reset back to 0. Tons of fun and totally free.

Re:MMORPG for people with a life

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out WoW's resting system... basically if you leave your character in an inn, and log out for 8 hours, when you go to fight you'll level more quickly. It seems they took the casual gamer into consideration (like me). I played the open beta casually and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Two movie tickets

[goldspider]

It might, until you consider that $15 is also the cost of only two movie tickets.

With the quality of movies, lately, being what it is, I'd rather put my $15 toward's a month's worth of entertainment instead of 5 hours.

Re:Wow, you guys must have macros set or something

[Razor Blades are Not]

Typical MMMORPG player - always blaming macros for the superior skill of others.

j/k.

Re:Go to it, unliked lonely nerds!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another MMO where you can spend countless hours doing pointless crap, while the real world passes you by and the popular people are out having fun and being social.

Oh but don't be sad - you can take out your little frustrations by PKing newbs. Hows that sound??

Oh, go to yet another bar where you can spend countless hours drinking poisonous crap, while the virtual world passes you by and the popular people are out leading groups and being social.

Oh, but don't be sad - you can take out your little frustrations by beating your children and the trophy wife that no longer looks like a trophy. How's that sound??

Excellent, excellent point!

[Onimaru]

Okay, I stand completely corrected! You're right, if the game is all that then leveling shouldn't be a grind. What a bizarre culture that it's so easy to completely lose sight of that!

Still, I think it's a good idea basically, though. Maybe offer a time credit (try our game out free for a month, and if you end up canceling your other accounts you get another free month?), or maybe a cash reward in game, like equivalent to 10 quests run at the level you are when you run to the end of the month. Something transient, but neat.

For comparisons look here

[Thorizdin]

For a pretty in depth comparison look HERE as a bonus the thread was started by HillaryClinton :)

My Beta Take: Best MMORPG Ever.

[Maul]

Putting aside my complaints against Blizzard for the bnetd debacle, I did take part in the Open Beta for this game. I must say that Blizzard really does have a very good game here, one that was able to keep my interest and not be boring after a couple of weeks (unlike EQ and DAOC).

The game's presentation is top notch, as to be expected from Blizzard.

If or not I'll purchase the retail copy. Well, I still have reservations about giving them my cash for their pursuit of the bnetd case. That and no matter how good a game can get, this type of game is always ruined by the community of idiots that eventually flocks to it.

I think that upcoming games like NWN2 and Dragon Age will still provide a more personal, quality experience to a small group of roleplay minded gamers. But, as far as MMORPGs go, WoW does the best job of that I've seen.

Me too. How can GuildWars do it?

[Ohz]

All of the excuses for these subcription fees fly out the window when I consider that GuildWars, which is sure to encounter similiar server and upkeep costs promises that there will be no monthly fee. Given the predicted success of GW (400,000) players during it's recent 2-day beta and the viability of Blizzard's own Battle.net... Why should I believe that $15 being charged is anything but pure profit?

Re:Me too. How can GuildWars do it?

[fitten]

Is GuildWars actually an MMORPG or is it like Diablow in that you use Battle.net as a chat/meeting place and then the games are peer-to-peer?

Everquest, for example, has over 1000 machines in its server farm, more than one data center (gotta lease, own, or pay rent), and bandwidth out the wazoo. Also, there are people to pay to keep all that running. None of that comes with no cost, even the F/OSS understand that hardware and bandwidth costs money, if not the people and code.

In comparison, Battle.net isn't that big of a deal.

Beta tests and actual game aren't necessarily the same. Many people play the betas to see if they will like the game. If they don't like it, they don't buy it. Even if they get 400,000 buyers, that's $20M. The project probably had a budget they have to pay back of a few $M. After that, if they actually have to maintain a server farm like Everquest, they'll blow through the rest of that money in a year or two at most. Everquest has been around for 5 years. Perhaps GuildWars doesn't plan on being around that long...

Re:Me too. How can GuildWars do it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Guild Wars is going to do it with more frequent expansions, every 2-3 months IIRC, direct download for about $30 each (So they get all the money, instead of letting distributors and retailers get a piece). While you don't "have" to have the expansions, if you want to be competetive (and they're making PvP seem like a very important point), you will buy them. That's pretty close to the monthly fee other games charge. You just don't know that's what it is.

Re:Me too. How can GuildWars do it?

[MaineCoon]

Halve that. If the game costs $50, likely the publisher is going to see $25 to $30.

Budgets on games these days run about $3m to $5m or more for development, MMORPG games tend to cost twice that.

Re:Me too. How can GuildWars do it?

[Austerity Empowers]

You're trying to compare apples to oranges.

GW is fun. WoW is fun. HL2 is fun.

is like

Diablo 2 is fun. EverQuest is fun. Quake 3 is fun.

-----

Next discussion, monthly fees:

Why do 2 of those games require a monthy fee? There's a good reason.

Too much?
Do you think $50 shoes cost $50 to make? More like $5 (in materials). Is the company making $45 profit/pair? No. Are they making a profit? Obviously, or they wouldn't be selling shoes anymore.

I think shoes are overpriced, how do I get them cheaper?
Buy cheaper shoes or go barefoot.

---

Final discussion, borrowing money.

"Mom, may I have $10?" "Yes honey."

"Dad, can I have a car? Get a job, pay me back"

"Mr. Loan man, may I have $300k loan?"
"Assuming your credit history is good, and you have a job paying you sufficiently, then yes, you can have a $300k loan. It will cost you $150k. You can pay me back $450k over 30 years."

"Mr. Investor Man, I'd like $5M to fund my game"
"Well you seem to have a record of successfuly managing money, but what's in it for me? You can't possibly pay me back $5M in our lifetime, so I will have to assume risk that you fail. No, I will not give money to you, and not at once. I will let you use installments of my money to run your business. I will meet quarterly to discuss how you've spent this money, how much you've earned, and how much you expect to earn next year and perhaps give you a bit more money or pull the plug. I expect to make consistently 20% above my investment. Some of this I will give to you back in salary. I will let you have a small percentage of the profit, another percentage will go back to your company for investment, the rest and majority I keep."

Good Game, But....

[meplaysocr]

it still needs some work. Having been in the closed beta, then the second stress test and open beta, I have seen the game progress quite a bit. Or digress depending who you talk to. Couple of the classes are really solid and complete, like the Hunter, Paladin, and Warriors. Other classes have been without much upgrade in the last couple of patches are in dire need of some help, such as Druids and Mages.

Over all I found the game to be fun and enjoyable. It doesn't force you to group with othes, though for a lot of the instances (read almost all) you will need a group to complete all the quests with that instance. Some of the quests are simplistic, get Item A, got to Vendor B, Kill Monster C, but it does allow you to explore the world and the regions are quite amasing. The expansiveness of the game is breathtaking, especially the cities. I think that is one of the major things that drew me into the game, was the artwork.

Blizzard was pretty good about listening to their beta testers and trying to balance out our requests with reality. Though if there is something in the game that sucks, don't blame me, I probably posted against it. :)

I don't think I will actually be buying the game, as I don't have the funds to pay a monthly subscription, though if I did, I would likely play, at least for a while. The game has great potential, and some of the raid aspects that have been tossed around should keep the end game interesting to those that top out on levels.

Re:When does it come out for consoles? Yeah, I kno

[amrust]

Hmmm...I'll have to check out my laptop specs when I get home. It may be able to handle that!

Wish I were..

[Anonymous Coward]

..at home playing instead of at work.

50 dollars up front is to cover development costs, the free month is to suck you in yea, and the monthly fee is to keep the developers and owners happy and covering upkeep costs.

I personally prefer paying 50 dollars up front for the game + free month, 30 dollars a year for expansions, and 13 dollars a month (for a 6 month subscription) to play a solid and constantly supported and upgraded multiplayer game, than paying 50 dollars every month for the latest and greatest game that is probably originally designed for single player (ugh).

I don't plan on playing any games other than WoW and CS:Source until the next HL is released, and if I do I'll get it pirated because the only games out their worth the cost to me are extremely solid, fun, and supported multiplayer games.

I actually enjoy supporting companies that provide the best product to me, if I didn't pay a monthly fee for WoW I'd feel as if I were stealing something.

Really keep yer conscience clean

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really have enough money to play and donate, please consider a worthy cause.

Personally, my donations to this cause is of a magnitude that bars me from going much out and makes me think twice before wasting money on non-essential items.

I'm posting anon as I'm not donating nor posting to harvest personal acknowledgement.

Remember, for 15$ is nothing to us.
It's school for six months for a child.

I was a beta tester...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and I'm not going to be buying this game yet, perhaps not ever.

I tested the game for around 8 months and logged more than 35 days and several hundred suggestions, alongside countless bugs.

The bottom line is that the game was released prematurely, to the detriment of the product.

In the week before release, Blizzard completely revamped two entire classes (warrior and paladin), and in the process made the previous months of testing these classes in high-level content completely meaningless. There is a new "queue" system, which controls access to actually getting onto a server and playing. Despite assurances that the queues would not be visible in retail, new players are finding that they have to wait for over an hour in a queue before entering the game.

Battlegrounds, PVP rewards, and the honor system were supposed to be in place months ago. None are actually implemented yet.

Raid content was added, but of such obscene difficulty that groups of 40 players with the best gear in the game got absolutely thrashed. Limited success was generally achieved only by spamming abilities that will probably be adjusted in subsequent patches (druids and moonfire stun).

Hero classes, once heralded as a different sort of end-game, distinct from the raid encounters, have not been mentioned officially in months and may never appear.

Why was the game released before it was ready, by a company that has earned a reputation of never doing that? I have it on fairly good authority that Vivendi offered Blizzard employees profit-sharing if the release happened before the end of the year.

Blizzard's post-release support has traditionally been extremely spotty, though they are no different in that regard from the rest of the industry. Before now, however, their saving grace has been that the game was actually reasonably close to finished before it hit store shelves.

Re:I was a beta tester...

[kwerle]

OTOH, this game is a ton of fun, and play is rock-solid. So I guess they released it because they could charge for it and people enjoy playing it.

A Price war...

[cnelzie]

...won't really happen until all the MMORPGs offer extremely close experiences and the differences between them are minor. Once that happens, then competition on price will be the norm.

However, right now you have vastly different games, some with vastly different genres. At best, there could be a pricewar between Fantasy Based MMORPGs, SciFi based RPGs and so on. That is very unlikely, because each of the games set into each genre offers various levels of play and radically different takes on the genre.

A SciFi example being...

Star Wars Galaxies and Anarchy Online.

SWG has a well known and loved franchise. That's HUGE points over AO. SWG has a very wide crafting system and equipment system, from harvesting resources to building sub-components to crafting final assemblies. AO's crafting system pales in comparison. SWG now has a Space Combat system as well as several planets to choose from. AO doesn't have that.

There is little reason for SWG to compete with AO based upon price. SWG offers much, much more then AO currently and may ever offer.

The same goes for a variety of other MMORPGs. For the longest time Ultima Online offered things that EQ and other Fantasy MMORPGs didn't offer. It had a decent crafting system, player houses, non-combat classes and a number of other interesting features all taking place in a long-lived Computer Fantasy Role-Playing Game of Ultima.

I would like to see a pricewar, but that won't happen until all MMORPGs of a particular genre share so many features that price is the only way to differentiate between them. Until that day, those companies can continue to increase their prices just up to the point that decent numbers of players start leaving the game.

Re:A Price war...

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest reason that SWG might not compete with some other game is that SWG blows.

Re:When does it come out for consoles? Yeah, I kno

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

I have a 2.5 GHz AMD system with a slightly outdated ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, and even in a heavily populated area, my CPU utlization never exceeded 80%, most of the time it hovers around 75%. This is the least CPU intensive MMORPG I have ever played.

Free (Beer) MMORPGs

[robyannetta]

I expect the list to contain games with very BAD graphics, but does anyone have a list of MMORPGs that are free of a monthly fee?

Re:Free (Beer) MMORPGs

[Anonymous Coward]

This used to be sorted by free/unfree, but now it's by type. You can figure it out.

Re:Free (Beer) MMORPGs

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.guildwars.com/

Re:Free (Beer) MMORPGs

[tsalem]

I mentioned it in an earlier thread, but according to Guild Wars' FAQ at http://www.guildwars.com/, it will not have a monthly fee when it comes out. And thanks to filtering, the game looks pretty good too. It's the only MMORPG I've ever considered, based on the no-monthly-fee fact alone.

Re:Free (Beer) MMORPGs

[Anonymous Coward]

Conquer online: http://www.conqueronline.com is free and not -too- terrible.

Re:Free (Beer) MMORPGs

[Negatyfus]

Unfinished, but in active development:

Planeshift

Reason for releasing now...

[jayveekay]

Why was the game released before it was ready, by a company that has earned a reputation of never doing that?

Vivendi Universal Games lost a lot of money last year, and the year before, and so on. See http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/09/14/news_61073 51.html.

They really need some "wow" to boost the bottom line this year. I'm sure that there was pressure on Blizzard to get this door for the holiday buying season.

First major mmorpg launch of the year ?

[Anonymous Coward]

EQ2 just went live two weeks ago. Easily as big a deal as WoW is by any standard I can put it to. Not saying either is better then the other just a bit hard to miss the lines I saw of people picking up eq2 at the local mall.

Re:First major mmorpg launch of the year ?

[w98]

The original posting said the 'last' major mmorpg. Perhaps you just read it wrong?

Re:First major mmorpg launch of the year ?

[/dev/trash]

Where did it say the first? The sentence was "the LAST"

Re:First major mmorpg launch of the year ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please someone change this from informative to clueless.

Re:I for one...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is as different from EQ as half-life is from Quake.

In other words, not at all?

Actually, that analogy seems fairly sounds - Half-Life had better graphics than Quake and a better story. But other than that, the gameplay was identical.

Re:When does it come out for consoles? Yeah, I kno

[gclef]

Having been in the open beta, and running a 1Gz box (512MB ran and a 32MB RAM video card), I can say with some authority that older systems have no problem at all with WoW. I didn't have any frame lag, and the game automatically set the various video settings to minimal for my box. It was quite nice to be able to play a game that didn't require me to build up some insane machine.

European situation sucks ass

[Realistic_Dragon]

For us in the UK...

We cant buy a US subscription, so we have to wait until January for the game to be translated in French and German.

THEN we cant play on the US servers, without getting a US address and credit card and buying a second subscription.

AND the preorder starts on Friday but the only retailer knows nothing about it and the stock of pre-order boxes are not yet in store.

What the hell is the point in paying $15/mth for a worldwide MMPORG when it's not worldwide! I want to play with friends both in the EU and in the US, so WoW is right out the Window for me. All they have to do is make it possible for those in the EU to play with those in the US and bang... they get my money... but no, the bl00dy publisher (Vevendi I believe) are so stuck on making a bigger profit that it's not possible to do that.

They can go to hell as far as I am concerned.

Re:European situation sucks ass

[dfiguero]

At least you'll get it eventually. Anyone south of the American border will be out of luck indefinitely.

Re:European situation sucks ass

[ThousandStars]

Linux on a Powerbook. The iron fist in a velvet glove.

So you're stuck in a conundrum: WoW is good because of the simultaneous Mac launch and bad because "it's not worldwide".

Judging from the last line of your post, I think I see which side won out.

Re:European situation sucks ass

[Meneudo]

It looks like WOW learned from lineage 2...

Not to sound like a racist, but everyone learned the hard way with US and China on the same server. Typically, people from China would try to "own" their own areas in the game, and this would piss of US people who want to hunt wherever they please, e.g., some Chinese players would "dual-box" (playing two comps at the same time) or even more, (its obvious with 6 chars named XXXXX01 through XXXXX06), and take up an entire zone to themselves. Botting, macros, you know the drill. You couldn't argue... many of them couldn't speak English, or were bots. Others had high level "enforcers" used to kill people who tried to enter their zones.

Also, people from China became synonymous with selling items on ebay, and were dubbed "farmers." So it becomes this perpetual war between farmers and "real players." It inspires hatred and nationalism (bad nationalism, in this case).

There is also the 'time' issue: It's night in some places in the US when it is dusk in England. This really screws up server maintainence. What time do you shut the servers down: Primetime in US or primetime in Europe? You end up screwing someone over.

I look forward to beginning WoW, and not having to worry about this. Sure, I will miss some of the diversity, but I won't miss any of the hassles.

Patch 1 came out already, and 2, and 3...

[Anonymous Coward]

Open Beta users played on 1.0, which immediately was "fixed" through a small patch which just moved files around to 1.01.

A week later, 1.10 came out, and on the second to last day of OB, 1.10b came out.

Blizzard has stated the copy on Open Beta machines is newer than the copy of the physical media. So, if you didn't uninstall, you have a newer copy of the game than you purchased.

MUDS!

[Christopher_Wood]

www.topmudsites.com is a good place to start. If you like MMORPG's, and you enjoy a more literate, deeper, and more immersive game playing experience, MUDs could be for you.

Re:MUDS!

[k_187]

Yes, and to add to that:

http://lunar.betterbox.net

I'm an imm on there so mention Slashdot and get something cool! Maybe, if I feel like it.

Re:MUDS!

[MaineCoon]

How about a science fiction race wars MUD (not SOLELY PK)

avpmud.com 4000

Your idea is far worse...

[Shivetya]

Permanent death? Consider the buggy state of most MMORPGs and where some won't even guarantee character inventories you want people to trust these developers to not have bugs, exploits, or whatnot that result in losing their character permanently?

Then you top it off with the age old reply of "PVP will solve everything". Actually most MMORPG problems stem from PVP and the behavior of the players involved.

See one thing I have learned in my nearly 10 years of similar gaming is that PVP people think they are the only ones who really know how to play yet at the same time they are the first to justify every asshat activity they do.

Free for all PVP is just stupid. Why? Simple because players cannot govern their own worlds properly. What you have is anarchy and no one wants to invest time in that type of world. Another way to put it, there are not enough mature players to handle all the immature twits that would ruin any attempts at imposing some type of law. (don't bring of ATITD)

Your terminology also indicates that your blinded by this PVP or anything idea. Dismissing everyone else as "whiny brats" I am surprised you forgot to toss in carebear.

Get this, the majority of North American players do not want PvP. They do not want to waste their investment of time. They do not want their play time which they pay for controlled by the actions of a bunch of immature punks. In other words, they want to enjoy the game with others in a cooperative environment.

Let me save you the trouble. There are many PvP centric games available for you to play. The trouble I am saving you is the standard reply "but game X didn't do it right, but this game Y could be right IF ONLY THEY HAD PVP".

In other words you will whine till the cows come home because many of us refuse to allow you to impose upon us your lack of maturity.

Re:Your idea is far worse...

[kindbud]

You really need a girlfriend or boyfriend. Really. Or a outdoor hobby. Anything.

In other words you will whine till the cows come home because many of us refuse to allow you to impose upon us your lack of maturity.

Suck my cock.

Re:I for one...

[glowimperial]

Have you actually played the game?

GW is M$ Winblows only

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Linux desktop and a Mac laptop. At least I can use one of them to play WOW.

They don't provide content.

[Sirwar]

-nt-

I've never played these games

[akikage]

But if what you say is true about players not being able to govern their own worlds then isn't the answer to have the game do it for them? For instance, to discourage random killing set up a police force of bots. Murders can be reported and the suspect can be sought, imprisoned, tried, banned, killed, or whatever. If I knew that killing some random person i met along the way would result in my getting arrested and possibly executed for my crime I might think twice before doing it. Of course, if I was aiming to play a murderer then maybe this would result in a more detailed and exciting world.

Fair Enough... Guess it's my turn

[Sentry21]

I hopped into the open beta a few days before they stopped taking applications and played my little heart out for near a week. I had a few days I couldn't play at all, but I had one day I played for 12 hours straight so it kind of balances out. Here's what really struck me about the game. I'm not going to mention what everyone else has already said (i.e. you can quest for xp), but I'll stick to what leapt out at me.

Technical
The game was fairly smooth but somewhat choppy so I had the detail turned down for most of the test. Come to find out that I can turn the detail settings all the way up in every aspect except for draw distance and get remarkable framerates. My system is no slouch (P4/2.8HT, 512MB, GeForce Go FX5200), but it's still good to know.

I ran WoW in a window the entire time I played it. It was remarkably smooth, and tabbing in and out of the game never had a problem. Blizzard also thoughtfully coded the game so that when it is not focused, clicking in the window gives the window focus, but the click DOES NOT go to the UI. Thus, you won't try to click a Start Menu entry that disappears out from under you, resulting in you attacking a herd of 840 ravenous orcs just begging for a reason to stomp you like yesterday's grapes.

One feature that cannot be emphasized enough is the customizability of the UI using XML. The regular interface is surprisingly bland and you'll run out of clickbar space in your first ten levels (probably your first four if you're a mage). Instead, you can grab an alternate UI (I suggest Cosmos) which is simple to install (unzip the Interface directory to the Addons directory), then restart the game. This adds hordes (hehe) of customization options to the interface, as well as useful features you will wonder how people do without.

Gameplay
You can jump. I know this doesn't really seem like much, but it's so fun. It feels like I'm playing Jak 2 or something, jumping through the treetops of Teldrassil like a Bawlz addict on E, marvelling at the amazing colours and visual textures. I myself took great pride in being able to leap from the top of the great tree Aldrassil to the ground, bounding from branch to rooftop on the way down, to land safe and healthy among the 'jumpers' (corpses of those that fell to their deaths). This serves no practical purpose, but it's a lot more fun than walking everywhere.

Getting around is easy, and you actually get experience for finding new-to-you places. It's not much, but it's free. You can travel by walking, you can fly by griffon, hippogryph, wyvern, or something else, you can have a mage teleport you if you ask really nicely, you can take an underground rail, a ship, or even a zeppelin. It's fun to explore, sneak around, find new monsters, and kill them.

You can have up to ten characters per server, and I think you can be on 5 different servers (don't quote me on this). Suffice to say, you'll have more characters than you'll need, unless you're some kind of sick weirdo (or you are actually unwell and spend a lot of time in bed).

The game is very social, but differently so than Final Fantasy XI, which is also very social. While FFXI is social by forcing grouping, WoW is social despite not forcing grouping. I only grouped once, and that because some guy thought I was a chick and I wanted to use him as bait to finish a quest. That being said, every area has various chat channels (i.e. Teldrassil General, Darnassus General, Darnassus Defence, etc) so you can talk to those around you who don't mind random chat, but if you don't like it, you can leave the channel (I guess). Thus, even though I am wandering around on my own, I can still chat with people around me, ask questions, answer them, ask if anyone wants to group for a quest, etc. I can pop in for 30 minutes, chat and kill, and leave. Easy.

PvP
I have no idea. I guess you can kill other people. They say it's fun.

Classes
The classes are varied, and t

Re:Fair Enough... Guess it's my turn

[Cali Thalen]

About PvP:

There are PvP servers. There are roleplaying servers that I've heard are PvP, but I'm not sure in any way.

On the non-PvP servers, there is still PvP mode you can go into, and anyone else who is in PvP mode is vulnerable (if you're on the opposition's side).

I was involved in the big raids on the open beta's last 2 days, and all I can say was that it was a complete blast. If you get tired of getting your elvin butt handed to you, the PvP mode times out after 5 minutes of non-use, then you can go back to playing PvM. That's a great compromise IMO. (turning into a chicken was a little less of a blast, and I didn't quite figure out why that was going on, but it was amusing at least)

Re:Fair Enough... Guess it's my turn

[hbar]

I guess you can kill other people. They say it's fun.

The possibility of that being taken out of context reminds me of this.

Re:Fair Enough... Guess it's my turn

[Fr05t]

I also have gotten tired of waiting for 3 hours in FFXI to do even the simplest of things. I guess I never realized until I played a MMORPG that doesn't have game mechanics coded with the purpose of wasting time (11 minutes for the airship and a 5 minute ride??) that FFXI intentionally wastes time.

I have a job, and I can't justify it any more.

btw - I was on Midgardsormr now on Stormrage

WoW & HL2

[CFBMoo1]

I went out and bought both collectors editions. Sad to say the DVD for WoW was messed up but the CD install worked just fine. I finally got in and found the graphics somewhat cartoony. Though I do love how the dwarves look.

I went on a few quests and found them to be kinda fun. I'll probebly get bored with it after a few days of playing though. It's too mindless, I have more fun still playing Neverwinter Nights simply because of the scripting in module building. I just hope there's some good people in there to keep my attention longer.

Right now I've installed HL2 and am waiting on Steam to do its thing so I can just play the blasted game. I'm quite sorry to have purchased HL2 because of Steam. Infact my whole service/pay per play experience is hurt by both games. Price, opressive terms of service, and playability wise makes me think I just wasted $160.

Grinding ? Questing ? Who cares ?

[LouSir]

Those that play and complain about grinding out levels or crappy questing really need to analyze why they are playing these games in the first place. I play to have fun. Sometimes I find it fun to mindlessly sit there and swat at rats for hours on end. Most of the time I don't. When I don't I stop playing or find another game to play. WoW is more fun for me because the journey (leveling) is more important then the destination (uber toon). I enjoy trying to get there in WoW. The quests are fun and the terrain/graphics are enough to keep me coming back. I guess that's why I also ride a motorcycle. Because sometimes it's about the journey, not the destination. Who wants to get there fast, I'm enjoying the ride. LouSir

For Game Information

[Allakhazam]

If you are looking for information on World of Warcraft, we have pretty much everything about the game listed in great detail -- quests, items, mobs, spells, skills, talents, maps, etc.

http://wow.allakhazam.com

--Allakhazam

Re:For Game Information

[Anonymous Coward]

And, if you were wondering if there was a place that had a moderation system worse than Slashdot, they've got you covered there too.

Re:For Game Information

[geekoid]

we need a -1 shameless self-promotion mod.

Re:For Game Information

[Kev6]

http://www.thottbot.com/ is a great site for items, quests, skills and player profiles. Autoupdates from information collected by players too.

(I have nothing to do with this site, I just use it and find it incredibly useful)

Re:My Question: Did they fix the AMD Bug

[Anonymous Coward]

I played through the Open Beta on an AMD 1700+ and never had a single crash. The only oddity I had was there were occasional herbs I wasn't able to harvest--you'd lock in position, then need to go do something else (cast a spell, fight) to get out of that position.

Blizzard's Cash Cow

[Sirwar]

I can't quote the specific place I read it, but even if Blizzard didn't say it themselves, its still true:

WoW is Blizzard's cash cow to fund OTHER projects. That doesn't mean they aren't putting their hearts into it, it just means they're going to charge the S--- outa you.

What major developer WOULDN'T want a steady stream of income to pad the investor cushion between big releases.

Re:Blizzard's Cash Cow

[Anonymous Coward]

$12-$15 a month for up to 50 characters seems to you like a rip off? Try Final Fantasy XI, the standard fee is $13 and you are allowed only one character, you have to fork over an additional dollar a month for each extra character you want to make. If you want to have an easy way to make money you need at least 4 mule characters.

Bah!

[WSAENOTSOCK]

I bet Nethack still beats this.

Best character type for a "griefer"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, I need short-term power more than long term potential. There doesn't seem to be a good forum for griefers so any advice would be appreciated.

Re:Best character type for a "griefer"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Suicide squad?

PlanetSide was fun

[CrazyJim1]

I enjoyed early days with a tank and turrets. I'd lay out a turreted area where I could flee to, and then go run over people. When I got hurt I'd just go back and heal the tank in the turreted area. I could kill like 50 people at a run like this.

Problem with PlanetSide is that you can get everything you want in under a few hours(not much for RPG). That and you're in an army. When you're in an army, you share rations, and never get to hoard loot for yourself. I've said it before, but an optimal MMOFPS would have it so you could form a clan and create a custom fortress/factory. You'd constantly be fighting battles to secure more resources, and then using the resources to make your fortress/vehicles/self better.

Yes, I had lots of fun in PlanetSide, and abused some bugs(like killing all the spawn tubes but 1, and autokilling people who spawn in the last one). PlanetSide was fun, but it has no long term goals of building up your player/clan/bases. To me its HIGHLY important to have long term campaigns/gains in a subscription based game. If you want me playing for years, you need to give me new content over time or let the players make content.

Re:PlanetSide was fun

[Anonymous Coward]

while i agree that in order to draw people in for 5-10 years years new content and long term campaigns/gains would be effective, i don't agree with you on the effectiveness of player created content. For example in starwars galaxies (haven't played it myself) I know there was some expermintation with this, Correct me if Im wrong but I heard that user created cities had an effect like urban sprawl and detracted from the game.

Re:PlanetSide was fun

[RobinH]

I think the fact that I don't feel an attachment to the game is what appeals so much. How's that for backwards? I stopped SWG after I'd mastered artisan and architect because I realized I had too much invested in that character to change it, and I didn't want to start over. Not to mention, even though the crafting system is really great in SWG (compared to other games), it's still very boring. You can't DO anything with the credits you make doing it, and you can't use half the stuff you build because you've spent all your skill points on your profession. This was an attempt to make people have to interact and work as teams, but it made it so boring. Taking me as an architect on a mission was almost a liability.

I like planetside's idea better. Instead of making the typical FPS where everyone is of equal strength if you pick up all the weapons in the game, it limits you to specific armament. You have to choose anti-infantry, anti-air, or anti-armor. Also, the more powerful of a weapon you pick, the more specialized you become in that area. It turns the game into a big rock-paper-scissors game, which means you get benefits to working with other people, but you still get to take part in the fun stuff. They also let the engineers and medics still carry weapons and get into the action.

Re:PlanetSide was fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Player cities might have worked if you could have placed a shuttle port right away. As it stood, smaller cities had no means for transportation to/from them other than player vehicles (and player cities were introduced BEFORE player vehicles) so they all end up in this strange ring around the static cities like Mos Eisley, etc. (since there was a no-build zone around existing cities).

There were some large player run cities that did very well. It was an interesting idea, and fun for a bit.

Re:I for one...

[Jason Hood]

I for one... welcome our orc and elven overlords.


Dude, seriously.

The start of the "Entertainment on Demand" era

[FatPaulie]

I'm going to pay the $12.99 a month (in 6-month blocks) for World of Warcraft. I played for almost 6 months in the closed beta. I thought MMORPGs were sucky and expensive. Now I look back at how much time I spent and how much entertainment value was in that time.

What interests me is a thought I had. "Cancel cable to play WoW.". This lead into the idea of just downloading the shows I like from BitTorrent. Yes, it's illegal for now, but it's not always going to be.

I think we'll start to see more of a choice in what we consider entertainment. I'd rather have streaming "on-demand" shows at 99 cents per hour's viewing than paying $40 a month for cable.

If I watch an hour an evening (which I don't do, but let's just say) of TV, that's still only $30 a month, saving me money off my cable bill. Say I like 3 shows, each on once a week, add in a movie or two on the weekends. That's still under $20 a month for on-demand entertainment. Plus, I can watch it when I'm not playing WoW.

Yeah, a bit scatterbrained, I'll admit. But if I'm representative of the 18-49 demographic, then others must be having this desire/thought. The iTunes music store seems to be working, so where's my NBC TV shop? or my HBOnline? Keep your TiVo, especially with the new "ads while you skip ads" system. I'll pay for my content to get it commercial free.

Re:The start of the "Entertainment on Demand" era

[Damana Mathos]

I've always found part of the attraction of cable is the ability to channel flick and come across random things I might find interesting that I wasn't necessarily searching for. I think that's the main thing that will keep a "on-demand pay-per-use" model from gaining widespread appeal... or at least will keep the appeal of the bundled services.

Ten Cents An Hour?

[Databass]

That's like $.50 a day to play online... if I put in five hours a day, that's only ten cents an hour for what is, to me, quality entertainment. (It's more likely I'll be putting in..uh... ten hour days for a while.)

Compare that to movies, buying beer, eating out, or even prostitution in dollars per month as alternate recreation and WoW becomes highly affordable to the point of being transparent. When it gets taken transparently out of one's credit card it becomes like the water or electricity bill- you don't even feel it.

Yes, you could pay once or not at all (for free/free beer games)for a single player experience that entertains you, alone, for longer time. But for me it's worth it to play online with lots of other people, friends and stranger alike. I don't mind dropping a negligible amount of money to cover the server and bandwidth costs I know MMORPGs generate.

It's funny to me to hear Slashdot users, who almost by definition of have computers and broadband (which represent plenty of disposable income) complaining that $14.95 a month is somehow breaking the bank. If anything, the largest cost involved in the game is the opportunity cost. If a slashdot geek's techno-time is worth even $20 an hour and they play one hour a day, that's... $600 in opportunity cost to relax and have some fun in WoW! $14.95 is NOTHING compared to that.

Great game - but where can you buy it online?

[Damana Mathos]

I played the Beta a bit and thought WOW was great fun... so looking forward to getting back into it. :) Does anyone know if you can buy a key online and download the client? I haven't been able to find anywhere, suggesting I need to go to a store and buy a box... seems so inefficient in the day and age of broadband!

Re:Great game - but where can you buy it online?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know of anywhere you can buy a key on-line, but if you get one from the store and you played in the last beta, you dont need to reload the game (unless you uninstalled it). I bought the box this morning, signed up for an account on the WoW website and entered the key and all the other information and with a 2 minute patch download (which the game initiated on it's own) I was playing.

Very nice. And a really fun game.

Re:Great game - but where can you buy it online?

[w98]

I was a little disappointed that Blizzard did a character wipe, but I guess it's understandable. I'm just reluctant to rush out and buy the game if all of the newb areas are going to be crowded with 500,000 lvl 1 players.

I enjoyed the beta myself, but found the characters a little bit cartoon-ish compared with other MMORPGs.

Re:Great game - but where can you buy it online?

[kwerle]

I *think* the problem is that stores still balk if you offer the game online and expect them to stock it on the shelves. Even worse if you sell it directly and hope that amazon, etc, will stock it, too.

Any big chain gamestore will be happy to mail you a box. Depending on your internet connection, it might be faster than it would be to download it...

Re:Great game - but where can you buy it online?

[PedanticSpellingTrol]

Nope, you're still going to have to purchase the boxed product. On the upshot, if you have the open beta client you can just create a new account with your CD key and then login with it instead of having to reinstall from the discs.

WoW is certainly an appropriate name

[Anonymous Coward]

I played through the Final Stress and the Open Beta. Of those who say that the game is just a rehash of other games with updated graphics, I can only conclude that you were only focused on the game mechanics, and not on what was going on in the world around you.

Sure, mechanically there is not much new (though instanced dungeons are pretty new, and go a long way to eliminating the dealing-with-morons factor). But where this game really shines, what causes this to be far more immersive than any other RPG I've seen is the environment.

So many RPGs have huge cities that are just ghost-towns. The only NPCs you ever run into are those that serve some game mechanic (weapon vendor, healer, in keeper). In WoW, cities are literally bustling with activity: kids playing tag in the streets, teachers leading a class of students around town, mages hunkered down under trees debating magical theories.

In many MMOs, you're given a quest to kill X bad guys. Then you get another quest to kill X more bad guys. In WoW, you're given a quest to kill X of a specific type of critter, because it makes a really good stew. For completing the quest, you get the recipe for the stew, then never again get a quest to kill those critters.

WoW isn't about the game mechanics. It's about the immersion. It's about the Dwarven mortar team that blows stuff up once you bring them their ammo. It's about the Gnome whos experiment accidentally turn the subject into a hyper chicken. It's about the NPC that mails you a thank-you note for completing her quest. It's about the freelance trader tucked away in a corner amongst the marauding Defias Brotherhood.

If you want a game with really new and different mechanics, go find some other game. If you want a game that you can loose yourself in, go get WoW.

15 dollars a month?

[Flunitrazepam]

For 15 dollars, a giant troll hand better come out of my DVD rom drive and jack me off.

Re:15 dollars a month?

[geekoid]

of all the races; you choose a troll.
scary...really scary.

Re:15 dollars a month?

[mobets]

what? you prefer undead?

I enjoyed Vice City

[CrazyJim1]

This will sound dumb to some(and most people shouldn't care), but since then I haven't decided if its morally right to play a game that advocates gangland violence. Vice City was my favorite game of all time, with the good vehicle physics, car chases, quests and storyline.

Yet I didn't buy San Andreas because I have moral issues with playing a villian. I think its wrong to get joy out of running over people, assasination, and prostitution, even if its just fantasy. Its sort of sick to have a desire to shoot RPGs into random people's cars. Now I still really want to play the game because I know its quality, but the morality of it all is at question for me.

Beyond my own personal debate... I think a lot of thought needs to go in to how games like these could affect America's youth too. When I was young, I played Atari and they had rules against violence. Now there are 5 year olds growing up, doing virtual bank jobs, giving them an ego boost that they can do criminal acts. I don't have the answers, maybe just default back to it being the parents responsibility.

Re:I enjoyed Vice City

[prell]

San Andreas is unique, I believe, in that the violence isn't necessarily arbitrary. In fact, it may be true that all of the arbitrary violence in the game is in your control. GTA:SA bears you into a world where your character is exploited, and held under that exploitation not only because of his past, but -- arguably principally -- because of where he is in society; his caste. When I kill in SA -- really kill -- I honestly feel rage. About 1/3 into the game -- long enough that I felt very comfortable and involved in the world -- I was spirited away to a small town. Walking the streets of this town, trying to figure out what to do next, I was genuinely upset to hear one of the townspeople yell a racial slur at me. The funny thing I realize now is that I didn't kill that person. I just kept walking and couldn't believe he said what he did.

The game's characters are crooked, living in a crooked world. The main character and his friends live in a microcosm separated by a societal membrane. All they can do is be proud of and protect what they have -- their neighborhoods and families. The game doesn't start out violent; it's not as though you start the game with a gun in your hand and you go around killing people for no reason. One of the first kills in the game is a drug dealer who is selling crack -- a drug that has ruined your friends' lives and caused many people to die, directly and indirectly. And I was glad to kill him. While it could be argued that GTA:SA taps an animal "force" in its players, I'd suggest that possibly for the first time, the expression of that force has also been emotional for me.

As in life, the choice between nonviolent and violent response is up to you, but in a game, for the first time you can experience those choices and their effects; you may even understand something about humanity, and at that point, perhaps your decision will be different or at least more considered.

Re:Why pay for a computer and a net connection?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rock and stick is too hard to manage. You have to keep track of the rock, but now where's the stick, and believe me after a short while it gets very confusing very quickly. These days, I prefer just stick.

Ah, kids these days... back in my time we didn't have 'sticks': you had to go uproot trees in the forest with your bare hands, and then crush the log to make 'sticks', and all that time it was snowing. And we liked it.

Obligatory MMO WAAAHHH Thread

[servognome]

Is it just me, or does $15/month seem WAY out of proportion for something like this?
Why is it whenever somebody discusses an MMO, somebody always has to whine "They cost too much"
Professional sports ticket prices are too high, but each time sports comes on the news I don't start ranting "$50 bucks for seats at a 3 hour game, what a rip!" I accept the fact that people are willing to pay that price and I spend my time and money on an entertainment alternative (movies, watching the game in the bar, etc.)
$50+$15 is a standard pricing scheme the company chose, deal with it. There is no MMO monopoly, no MMO conspiracy, it's free market economics. There are free client pay for services, pay for client free service, and even everything free MMOs. Yet millions of people are willing to pay for clients and service; people even pay $80 for a client and a free in game cookie. If you are not willing to pay what the companies ask, play an alternative.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I sent Blizzard this email

[Hwaguy]

To whom it may concern:

There were several posts and FAQ answers concerning billing and
payment methods for WoW. PayPal was one of the options often
mentioned, along with prepaid game cards, and credit cards. With no
prepaid game cards available until the third of December, and PayPal
NOT being an option at the time of this email- I am a naturally
frustrated customer. Blizzard has always been very fair corporation to
me, and I would appreciate a non-misleading update on the availability
of alternative billing methods. I realize that credit cards are in
Blizzard's best interest, but repeatedly stating that alternative
methods for payment would be available, but not come through on that
promise, is frustrating to me as not only an avid Blizzard fan, and as
a consumer. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

-William A. Morrison
HwaguyGmail.com [@ removed]
(XXX) XXX-XXXX [phone # removed]

Re:I sent Blizzard this email

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it true that you get a free month of WOW with the purchase of the retail version? This might explain the delay in the pre-paid cards. Nobody should need them until Dec. 23rd

Yes... and No

[Shihar]

It is expensive if you are a high school kid with 40 hours a week to blow on a video game. It is less then a one hour worth of wage for most adults. So, it really depends on who you are.

The reason why there is so much bitching and moaning about MMORPGs price is because the target audience are not people with the money. $15 a month is nothing to me, but even spending 10 hours a week on a video game is completely unthinkable to me. That goes triple if any of that 10 hours is less then fun.

I personally love the idea of a massive online world. I would shell out $20 a month without a second thought for it. The difference is that I am not willing to 'spend time' on a game. When I start a game, I want to know that I am going to enjoy it from time zero until it is done. I don't want content denied to me because I don't have the same amount of time to blow as a high school student or someone without a job. My time is too valuable to get off on the slow feeling of 'progression' that MMORPGs almost completely rely on.

So, when an MMORPG can offer me a massive online world that I can simply jump right into and enjoy without ever have to 'pay my dues' (or however you want to word it), I'll shell out as much money as they want without a complaint. Until that day MMORPGs, and yes even WoW, (I was in the beta) will not get a cent. Why pay for a game that revels in drudgery when I can simply give my dollar to Half Life 2, FarCry, Unreal 2004, Counter Strike, and Grand Theft Auto? Massive online worlds are not synonymous with boring drudge work for people with too much time, but you would be hard pressed to tell that from the crap the industry keeps shoveling into a box.

Re:Yes... and No

[Moo Moo Cow of Death]

Not only are MMORPGs not for you...it seems like RPGs in general are not even in your remote interest, even single players. You need to devote a certain amount of time into any game multiplayer (at least I do) in order to get some satisfaction out of it.

Even the normal RPG requires you to "level up" in certain spots to continue the storyline without replaying a battle 500 times because you keep dying.

Sounds to me like unless you have natural aim (which some players do) you may as well read a book, which personally I get as much enjoyment out of (although not as long lasting as a MMORPG) as a NORMAL RPG since they both put you in the place of a hero (I use my imagination).

Re:Yes... and No

[rhettoric]

interestingly enough, the games that you mentioned that have a single player aspect (Half-life 2, GTA), also have progression built into them. For FPSs the progression is usually type of weapons, or defeating a particularly nasty boss/figuring out a puzzle, but it's progression.

It strikes me that, when it comes down to it, video games are about creating frustration for players to transcend. In simplistic team-on team games, the developers an give you all the weapons/skills etc. right at the beginning because the frustration comes from a team of people that are similarly equipped that are trying to stop you.

Any sort of a first personexperience is going to have to have frustration built into it, and if it's massively multiplayer it has to have progression (How long would you stay in a massive online world where there was absolutely nothing to accomplish?).

I was also in beta and have purchased the retail game as well. I very much enjoy the questing/levelling but I'm most curious to see how they deliver content for lvl 60 players. Now that the main issues of progression (levelling, talents, tradeskills) have beenestablished, how are they going to create new (and surmountable) challenges. Should be a fun time finding out!

lol

[Anonymous Coward]

u r a n00b jew lol

Re:Go to it, unliked lonely nerds!

[Anonymous Coward]

Best. Response. Ever.

yawn

[tsioc]

too bad I no longer care much about Warcraft... and have NEVER cared for RPG's of any sort. Where is Starcraft 2?

Re:Go to it, unliked lonely nerds!

[crisper]

I dont think it is only the unliked lonely nerds who play this game. The people who do play this game and become obsessed with it become the unliked lonely nerds!

what about Shadowbane?

[Anonymous Coward]

its only $10/mo., has cool PvP, and you can get the entire game plus Xpacs free download.

Try Eve-online.com

[Anonymous Coward]

free game. 15$ every OTHER month if you auto-pay
with a credit card.

Excellent gameplay, be as involved as you want
or don't.

Training isn't game play based it's time based.
Your skills advance even when you're offline.

Killer space based game, give it a shot?

It really is expensive!

[Prien715]

Why not just buy Warcraft III/TFT for $50, and let the fans make up mods for free? Why not, gasp, play it online and not pay a monthly fee?

When some company makes a MMORPG without a monthly fee, I'll bite. Until then, there's weeks where I go without gaming and have a life.

Re:It really is expensive!

[I!heartU]

www.guildwars.com have to wait till feb though.

World of Lawcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

How many of you (rightly) are anger over Blizzard's recent action regarding bnetd? These things are burden on innovation, but if you support company that do such thing, such thing continue. Only way to prevent such action is refuse to support company, even if you must forego good game or two... at least with Warcraft series, you can fire up BitTorrent... to DL the ... demo ... yeah hehe. ;)

My english is bad ... |3|_|7 17'5 |33773|2 7|-|4|\| 1337 5|>34|. :)

The server queue have really long lines right now.

[sir newton]

The server wait is unreal. I logged in at 9pm and there is an 820 ppl long line waiting to get in to the game. It is now 9:30 pm and I still have a 430 position in the queue. I think they are having a pretty rough launch. The ppl on the official forms are pissed. I hope I can get on soon.

Re:MMORPG's like WoW can ruin your life

[hudsong]

They are bad but they arent much worse than drugs and alchohol, which many people who don't do gaming indulge in. However, you can go to parties and not drink/smoke anything and be fine, like I do.

Re:Read the fine print...

[symbolic]

Yes, the startup fee is $9.95, but they've done something clever. You buy land in the game, and depending on how much the land is worth and how much of it you buy, it will affect your monthly payment - so it's more like you're renting the use of virtual land from the software company.

dont buy this crap

[Anonymous Coward]

this company cares nothing about its customer base.
they are disallowing logins and their are 'queues' to login that exceed 5 hours on some servers.

just about every server has a queue of some sort.

please folks, stop supporting these companies that treat us like crap. make them do things right for once. vote with your wallet and don't buy their crap.

Re:My Question: Did they fix the AMD Bug (Error #1

[pezpunk]

i had an Athlon643 FX51 and never had this error, and i worked my character up close to level 30 in the beta...

WOW is unplayable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow servers lagging out all night long.
Game is unplayable.

What a waste of $80.00

Great Job Blizzard !

Money extraction facility online!

[Landak]

While WoW does look a very, very, nice game, I will not be able to play it when it hit the stores over here in England, as I quite simply can't afford it. I don't like the pay-to-play idea; I don't like pure MMORPGs without the option to play them single player; and I certainly don't like the way that MMORPGs monthly fees have gone up in a fashion directly proportional to the number of polygons and textures the game uses.

I don't like pay-to-play as I kind of think it's equivalent to haliburton overcharging the Iraqi's for their own oil- you've already bought a box for £60 (Or $60, but I'm willing to bet the numbers will be the same when it comes out over here); and while I perfectly understand that bandwidth is not cheap, if Google can make some insane profit out of text-based advertising, would it really be to hard for Blizard to put a text based add - or full banner possibly - in the lobby/lounge/insert name here. The £60 could cover production of the game and infrastructure, the ads could pay their server's ISP fees, and replace the switches that blow out under the strain.

I don't like MMORPGs personally because I have an addictive personality, and spend all my waking hours infront of my boxes of radiation anyway; and I also don't like the fact that they greatly discriminate against those with higher pings or no bandwidth. What happens if a 56k user (Not by choice, like I've been up till recently) gets disconnected when saving, or moving somewhere on a server? What happens if you end up killing your character via lag? And what happens in 3 years time when WoW is £5.99 in a bargin bin somewhere, and you're the only character online in the whole of fâerun/insert fantasy world here?

I much prefer the NWN system of multiplayer; free, and a great and well thought-out addition to a great game. It has the flexibility of WoW (Okay, not in-game and you have to write modules on the Evil OS (©), but hey) as well as a cracking, long single player.

Would it really be so hard for blizzard to have written a single player mode for WoW; have a modular ad-on system, or at the very least give the option of playing offline, with the same stock NPCs present that we all know are in the online game?

Re:Money extraction facility online!

[Anonymous Coward]

be glad you can't get it. you would not be able to play it most likely for several weeks anyway.

they have a server queue system going.

the lines to get into a server are over 1000 people and 6 hours long in some cases. ALL of them have some sort of queue.

I've been in the queue several times now, but the client has crashed when I've gotten close to being able to play.

if anyone tells you this is a good release, they are just a fanboy spouting nonsense. play EQ2. It is stable and was playable from day 1.

Re:Money extraction facility online!

[Landak]

But no mac version that I know of :(. I know, I know, don't troll, I know. It's just more convenient for me at this moment to play games on my main mac (and server) than it is on anything else- I doubt EQ2 would run on a P2 450 - and I'm ever-so-slightly broke at the moment, what with being 15 and all _. After Christmas I might have a sane X86 box. Does EQ2 run well under wine, or better yet, is there a *nix version?

Re:When does it come out for consoles? Yeah, I kno

[zeno_2]

Ya this game runs on pretty crappy computers, so id say if it was made in the past couple years your gonna be just fine. Find someone with a collectors edition, and use the 10 day pass to test it first.

My friend runs WoW on his laptop, it has an SiS video chip in it, not sure of the model number or anything, but any SiS onboard video chip isn't gonna be that good, and it runs just fine.

The Great Scam

[Valen0]

If anyone wants a look into the darker (and funny) side of Eve Online, try:

The Great Scam

It is a long read and contains some "R" rated language, but gives you an idea of what the game can be like.

Pay per Play system?

[hypermike]

I read through this thread and I dont think I saw anything regarding this but how about a pay per play system? Pay 15 bucks to start and that would get you 30 days. To make it simple just charge 50 cents if you sign on 'that' day. So for me if I only play 3 days a week. Im only playing 6 bucks a month. I dont think this would take away from profits too much but would bring in many many more people. What do you think?

Re:Follow The Money

[iq in binary]

If you follow the money to the top of the reganomics pyramid and they get a measly 50 thousand players, they get around 10 million dollars a year. There's no way it costs that much money to run the infrastructure needed for this game.

You're right, but now factor in how much it cost them to bring this product to you. Market Research, Development, Testing, Publishing, Distribution, all are multi-million dollar endeavors. It's going to take them a couple years just to come out in the black from this venture, and that's if they get 100,000 players.

The price is wrong.
Tell you what, go spend a couple hundred $M on an MMORPG. Come back and tell me you're price isn't going to reflect the fact that it's going to take you a couple years to come out in the black. Oh? That's what I thought.

Re:Follow The Money

[MacroRex]

If you follow the money to the top of the reganomics pyramid and they get a measly 50 thousand players, they get around 10 million dollars a year. There's no way it costs that much money to run the infrastructure needed for this game.

The price is wrong.

The price you pay does not correllate with the cost of making the product available to you. So what? That's how capitalism works. You invest in making a product and hope that it gives you, the investor, a maximal amount of return. The market will decide how much the potential customers are willing to pay for the product, ie. how good the investment was.

Forcing them to scale the price to the costs would be market regulation at best, communism at worst. How would you like it if you wrote a kick-ass piece of software, and the government/someone said that since it's so good and it'll sell like crazy, you can't ask more than ten cents per copy, because otherwise the "price would be wrong"?

This is not what you asked, but...

[MacroRex]

www.mudconnector.com

Most, if not all, are completely free. And quite addictive, too.

Re:Follow The Money

[Ohreally_factor]

I looked all over sourceforge for your open source MMORPG and game server, but I wasn't able to find it. Let me know when your FREE as in beer game is available.

Oh, you're not developing an alternative? You're just complain^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsharing your wisdom? Well, maybe you could help these guys out. They're looking for a RPG Guru. =)

If you don't like that one, I counted over a dozen mmorpgs under active development on the first page of search results on sf.net using mmorpg as the search term. Knock yourself out.

Re:Keep yer conscience clean

[Anonymous Coward]

Moral relativism? (Odd term, really, as all morality is)

Instead of comparing them to their competitors, compare them to an ideal version of the company.

World of Warcraft vs Everquest 2

[Eviljay]

Am i the only person in the entire world who thinks that EQ2 blows WoW completely out of the water?

Initially i wasn't even that bothered about EQ2 and went for the open beta on WoW. After 3 days of playing it i felt something last felt when i was playing City of Heroes: Complete Boredom.

I normally play mmo's with a friend but as i was a troll and he was a dwarf we started miles away with no chance of meeting up until we were both much higher levels. Also the death process and running around as a spirit annoyed the hell out of me. If you had died trying to kill that uber boss you had to run back to find your body, then run back to your camp to get your equipment mended, then run back to the boss, fight for 5 seconds and die, repeat...

Maybe i didn't explore the game properly but it just didn't hold my immediate attention like i wanted it to.

Everquest 2 on the other hand, i enjoyed right from the start. The graphics have the be the best i've ever seen on an MMO. Whereas WoW was cartoony and bright EQ2's are detailed and dark. When you fought mob's who were clearly giving you an old-school beating you actually stood a good chance of surviving when you ran away.

Also you really don't need a hefty machine to run it like people are saying, it worked fine on my second machine which is a gut-busting 1.2GHz.

The crafting is a complete game in itself for those people (like myself) who like to make everything. The fact that you can lvl and branch out as an artisan seperate to your fighting profession just doubles the fun. If you get bored of running around fighting npc's, you can go craft yourself some new armour/spells/weapons/etc... And you don't need to rely on ANYONE to be able to do it.

Obviously i am but one person but if anyone asked my opinion i would heartily recommend EQ2 over WoW for a more fulfilling MMO experience.

One more thing that makes EQ2 a richer experience: npc's with VOICES!!! It's amazing how much difference that actually makes...

Re:World of Warcraft vs Everquest 2

[Progoth]

Also you really don't need a hefty machine to run it like people are saying, it worked fine on my second machine which is a gut-busting 1.2GHz.

The crafting is a complete game in itself for those people (like myself) who like to make everything. The fact that you can lvl and branch out as an artisan seperate to your fighting profession just doubles the fun. If you get bored of running around fighting npc's, you can go craft yourself some new armour/spells/weapons/etc... And you don't need to rely on ANYONE to be able to do it.

You're recommending EQ2 over WoW, and listing things that WoW has.

And if you're a troll and he's a dwarf, you're opposing factions...you're not supposed to be able to meet up.

Re:World of Warcraft vs Everquest 2

[Eviljay]

I was illustrating salient points about EQ2. Everyone knows you can run WoW on a 900MHz quite comfortably but on first impressions EQ2 was another Half-Life 2: major upgrade needed, but that wasn't the case.

I did say that i'd only played WoW for 3 days during open beta. And what i played was uninspiring. Whereas Everquest 2 had me interested from the beginning.

It had an excellent tutorial that had a great learning curve. The graphics were very impressive for an MMO as is the gameplay.

The thing is i really wanted to play WoW and didn't care about eq2 until i played them both. I just wasn't impressed with WoW as much as i was with EQ2

User created fortresses

[CrazyJim1]

I'd want some way to be able to blow up buildings in a big PVP world. They wouldn't be indefensible if you allowed "ghost men" for logged out players. For those who don't know, "ghost men" are NPC controlled players who are offline. Simply log off at the fortress, and your character is a guardian of the place.

Instead of urban sprawl, you'd have a large world with spots of tight resistance in bases of various sizes.

The real difficulty would be providing the code to destroy walls. It'd have to allow concrete chunks to be blown off and fall to the ground, possibly injuring people on the ground, and becoming part of the game(more memory). If part of the building gets destroyed, a check should be made if another part of the building should collapse. To me thats the really tough coding, but would rock.

Re:Follow The Money

[kenp2002]

Only 10 million? Shit kid get a real job in America. My budget alone for my department is 2 million and I burn that supporting only 1000 users nation wide. Hell my monthly long distance bill is 15k doing remote support and file distribution. Get out of highschool, buy a house, and learn just how muc real life cost.

Re:Why pay for a computer and a net connection?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, kids these days... back in my time we didn't have 'sticks': you had to go uproot trees in the forest with your bare hands, and then crush the log to make 'sticks', and all that time it was snowing. And we liked it.

The luxury! In my day there were no "forests" to go running to for our sticks. We didn't even have sticks! All we had was rocks, and being amoeba we couldn't even play with them. All we could do was sit on 'em, divide, mutate and evolve. And you know what, we didn't think it was so bad.

Why does everyone want to play with Americans?

[Analogue Kid]

I see the same kinds of complaints all the time here on the Chinese servers. Why the heck is everyone so obsessed about playing on the American servers? If you do that lag sucks, and you won't be able to find as many people who speaks your language. Even Brit's don't quite speak the langauge of Americans in my opinion...

Also, nobody here want's to play with the Europeans. I haven't seen any complaints from Europeans who want to play with Chinese either. Nope, everyone wants to play with the Americans... except the Canadians of course. But then again, they get stuck on the same North American servers.

Honestly, I pity Blizzard. They're just a game company trying to cut down on lag. Instead they're seen as evil for trying to "keep everyone out of America" or something like that. Peh. I'm happy to play on local servers.

Listen to the AC

[empaler]

UNICEF are good. I've seen their work.
Hell, I even work for them. Of course I say it rocks.

Mod Parent Up!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't have said it better myself. Too many of the cookie-cutter EQ types fail to appreciate the beauty of what Blizzard has created!