MMOGs Branch Out

Via Kotaku, a Wall Street Journal article looking at ways the Massively Multiplayer genre are opening up to new players. Besides new game genres, the article discusses changes in revenue collection schemes. From the article: "The industry's traditional business model is to charge about $50 for the game software and a monthly subscription fee of about $15 for online play. That model has proved risky: When a game is highly popular, the monthly fees yield steady revenue streams for many years. Some of the industry's earliest hits, such as EverQuest, released in 1999, still have many users. But monthly fees have been "a significant barrier" to growing the market, said John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, based in San Diego."

Comments

Joystiq != Kotaku

[-pms-mistletoe]

Interesting article though ;)

I'd play one of these

[hattig]

but:

1) I'm shit at games
2) I don't have much free time
3) I'd get addicted and lose my job

Would I be happier with a shittier job, a small residence and spending all my time playing games? Hmm...

I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[denverradiosucks]

Personally, I would be more inclined to play a MMOG if I wasn't charged a monthly fee. When I already have to pay $50 a month for DSL/Cable connection, another $50 for my cell phone, $35 for my land phone line, $50 for Cable/Satellite television, how on earth can I justify paying $15+ a month to play a game I spend $50-60 for at the store? They aren't necessarily providing me a service in the sense that the previously mentioned items are. Or are they? World of Pirates is a fun one and it is only a one-time charge of $20 to play. Granted its not World of Warcraft, but its an enjoyable clone of the old Sid Meier's game, and its all online, and it plays on relatively old machines.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Kazzahdrane]

The game you mentioned looks quite interesting, but the link was wrong.

http://worldofpirates.4players.de/wop/index.html is where yee should set sail!

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[bedroll]

They only mention it in sales table, but Guild Wars is one of the best selling MMORPGs because it has no monthly fee. That's the reason why it's the only MMORPG I've ever owned. I'm with you on the high monthly fee for other service front, I refuse to buy a game I have to pay to play.

I would consider a game, were it truly fun to play, that was free to download but has a monthly fee, though. The big problem with no monthly fee is that there's not as much incentive to play. That's why I have guildmates that haven't logged in in a month.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[AuMatar]

I don't see these expenses as connected- wether I play an MMOG or not, I'm still going to have cable, a phone (although I don't know why anyone needs a land and a cel these days), and cable. An MMO is an additional means of entertainment. And fairly cheap at that- about the cost of a movie for a month of play time. If the game is fun, its worth it. Do you not go to the movies/rent movies/read books/go to a bar/see a concert/etc because you have those fees already too?

I find the alternate ways of paying to be worrying. Those selling in game money or enhancements for cash- I'm worried that I'm going to have to spend large amounts of money on gear to continue to play. No thanks, I went through that with Magic once. I want to know how much I'll be shelling out up front. In game ads? I refuse to ever buy ANYTHING thats ad supported, I find ads annoying, insulting, and just plain rude. I don't watch TV, buy magazines, or listen to radio anymore because of them (in fact, I subscribe to satelite radio to avoid them). I'm quite happy to pay for my entertainment, just don't force ads down my throat.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[SkyFire360]

Check out Guild Wars. Buy the game once, then never pay ever again. Well, except for expansion packs, but that's normal :) Like the FAQ says (emphasis mine):

Several people in my family (or guild) intend to play Guild Wars. Do we each need to purchase a copy?

Like every other online game, anyone who wants to have a Guild Wars Game Account needs to have his/her own copy of the game. There is never a monthly fee to play Guild Wars, so you will have tremendous savings over most online games. Spawning multiple copies from a single purchase is disallowed and account sharing is a breach of the Rules of Conduct.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Lisandro]

I would consider a game, were it truly fun to play, that was free to download but has a monthly fee, though. The big problem with no monthly fee is that there's not as much incentive to play. That's why I have guildmates that haven't logged in in a month.

    Mmm, speaks volumes about how fun that game is, doesn't it. That's one of the reasons i never got into MMORPGs - they become a chore, sooner or later.

    As for the fees issues, i agree completely. I can't understand how people find acceptable having to pay to play the game you purchased. It would even be fine if you could download server software for those games, to be able to create your own worlds. Never mind software companies would never do that or that your own MMORPG server might not be the best idea... at least you could use the software you shelled cash for.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't justify that sort of expense for something that can give you tens and tens of hours of entertainment per month?
Say you play it 20 hours a week, which is not much compared to me, for example. that's ~80 hours per month.

That's a whooping 53 cents per hour. How much does going to a movie per hour cost you? Alot more than that.

MMORPGs are in my oppinion the least expensive form of entertainment you can get. Sure, normal games don't have a monthly fee, but they don't last for a year+ either. I played Dark age of camelot (on and off, mostly on) for ~2 years. No other game (except annother MMORPG, WoW) has come close to keeping me that long.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[jchenx]

Maybe you already know this, but in case you don't ... what you're paying for in the monthly fee includes the following: maintenance costs for the online servers, bandwidth costs for their datacenter, and additional content updates and bug fixes. Most non-MMO games don't have such additional fees. Either their multiplayer games are actually hosted on customer's machines (a la Diablo or most FPSes), or their server maintenance isn't that high (for example, Battle.net matchmaking servers are much fewer than the thousands of servers necessary to run WoW).

That said, it IS possible run a MMO without monthly fees (see Guild Wars). I'm not sure exactly how they do it (although I do know that game is mostly instanced, so maybe server maintenance is somehow cheaper?), but it's probably not that simple. The easiest route is to charge monthly, since that's already a proven business model (thanks to UO, EQ, etc.).

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Jarnis]

Easy, Guild Wars is *NOT* a real MMO.

It's a glorified, well-hidden matchmaking service (the 'town' zones) for a Peer-to-peer small team instanced combat. Everything except towns are instanced, and even towns have copies created as needed. The overinstancing really kills any shred of immersion (together with other nice things like 'you cant walk down here, because we put an invisible wall here' and 'btw you cant jump'.

Now if you want a sword & sorcery version of Quake with nice ladder/matchmaking, it's not a bad game, but it isn't a MMO.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[bedroll]

Mmm, speaks volumes about how fun that game is, doesn't it. That's one of the reasons i never got into MMORPGs - they become a chore, sooner or later.

I can't argue that sometimes it becomes a chore. However, I think that I should clarify my comment about incentive. The problem isn't that the game isn't fun, the problem is that people get busy with life.

Maybe it's silly to suggest that life is getting in the way of gaming, but that's basically the case. When you aren't paying an arm and a leg for the privilege to play a game then you tend to treat it as just that, a game. This is a problem when you're playing a team game where every online player can be an asset. By allowing your account that doesn't have a monthly fee to sit idle you're not hurting your pocket book, but you're potentially hurting your teammates by not being available.

In the end it's a minor issue, but it is a benefit that monthly fee games seem to enjoy. I may not play monthly fee games, but most of my guildmates also play WoW and others. I've notice that they are still attached to their accounts there simply because they feel that they've put so much into them. They still go and play every now and then, even the ones that say they prefer Guild Wars. This is something that Guild Wars doesn't have, and when the time comes that they decide to move on to another game they will surely dump this one with little regret.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[tekkou]

I thought it was kind of lame to have to buy a game for $50, then continue to pay for it. Then I got thinking: I bought my car, but I have to keep paying to use it (gas, registration, maintenance), and then I realized that's basically the same for just about any device someone could buy. You buy your computer, but have to pay each month for the electricity to use it (well, someone pays for it, be it your parents or your college, etc.).

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Anonymous Coward]

What -I- would like to see, and maybe it's just me, is a MMORPG that you could still play locally on your computer if you didn't want to pay the subscription fee... it just would be lacking the MMO part. Maybe it's just me, but I find server lag deaths and disconnections to be a pain in the neck.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[aleatory_story]

The Guild Wars marketing team was really quite genius. Just on this thread alone I see tons of posts calling it a "MMO", when it is nothing of the kind. It is like Diablo 2 with three-dimensional chat lobbies where you put games (instances) together. Sure, the gameplay has a MMORPG "feel" and "look", but it is all instanced; there is no *massive* world. The reason this was a genius bit of marketing was because it was advertised as being a "MMORPG without a monthly subscription," which instantly got it attention--especially from the people who refuse to play MMOs because of monthly fees (who also know pretty much nothing about what really makes an MMO, beyond perhaps a couple game trials in which they barely scratched the surface).

You might be thinking, "Well, it if looks and plays like an MMO, then what's your point?". If you've played EQ, DAoC, AC, or any other MMO for a very long period of your life, the difference is very obvious. It's hard to capture in words what having *real* massive world does to make a game so vastly different than Guild Wars even though the core gameplay seems similar. But having played both types of games, there is a totally different experience when you do not have a luxury of creating your own instance. There is a totally difference community formed--a totally different atmosphere. I could go on for paragraphs and paragraphs talking about the unique experiences I've had in MMOs that just couldn't happen in Guild Wars. It's not the combat mechanics or the user interface that makes an MMORPG. It's the "massive world" - the thing Guild Wars lacks.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[bedroll]

What -I- would like to see, and maybe it's just me, is a MMORPG that you could still play locally on your computer if you didn't want to pay the subscription fee... it just would be lacking the MMO part. Maybe it's just me, but I find server lag deaths and disconnections to be a pain in the neck.

I had a discussion about offline data with a friend who's been playing MMORPGs for years the other day. His explanation of why all the information is online is what keeps me from wanting the same thing as you suggest. It requires a little history, though.

Apparently earlier MMORPGs had some or all of the player's information on their local machine. The problem is that people would reverse engineer the data files and/or the executable in order to cheat the game. This would ruin the economy and give cheaters a huge advantage, hurting the game play for all others. That's why all of your information is stored on the server in modern MMORPGs.

The problem with what you suggest is that it would have the same vulnerabilities as before. The player would disconnect and work offline, getting an unknown number of drops and XP, and then when they come back online the server would have to honor that information.

I think an acceptable alternative would be for the server to keep your place for five minutes or so. That way if you're in the middle of a mission and you get kicked you could reconnect and join in wherever you were before. This would save a lot of frustration (like when you're at the end of a 2 hour mission and the monk gets kicked from the game and can't join back in) but it would protect against the cheating of old.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say the difference is obvious! Guild Wars doesn't suck!

Of course, your idea of fun MMORPG play is probably waiting in line for a good camping spot. "Where am I on the list now?" "Only 3 more to go!" Woo hoo, what fun.

Of course, you're right about the unique experience of waiting four hours for a 200 person raid to be assembled, raiding for all of 45 minutes, then waiting four hours for loot distribution. Guild Wars certainly lacks that.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[lgw]

You can be an MMORPG without having every square inch of the worl be a giant chatrooom.

Guild Wars is an MMO with most of the game instanced. Works for me! There was never anything *good* about non-instanced adventure areas anyway - unless you play an MMOG for the fun of waiting in line for a spawn and the immersiveness of discussing the latest basketball game on the broadcast channel (bonus points if it's a roleplaying server).

But then, I guess a lot of people *do* play for that - they're not really interested in the game world at all, so any area that's not a giant chat room is useless.

In any case, I'm never paying a monthly fee for another MMORPG until I see one that has an endgame that's somehting other than PvP or 200-person raids (or the worst of all: 200 person PvP raids - why did I ever think that would be fun?). When a company is willing to continuously add content accessable to 1 group, I'll be delighted to pay them monthly for that content.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Coltman]

what you're paying for in the monthly fee includes the following: maintenance costs for the online servers, bandwidth costs for their datacenter, and additional content updates and bug fixes

Start with the game costs $60 for initial purchase. Ok now given that WoW has over 1Mil subcribers, at $15 a month. Then Blizzard has an income of 15 mil to pay those maintenance cost? You really think that it costs anywhere near that much to maintain that game? A month? Plus the 60 mil for the sale of those games to begin with?

The average cost of development on a console is 7 mil.
Ref: http://www.etc.cmu.edu/about/press_articles/15.htm l
While I believe that can range up to twice that for development on some games, there is no way that maintaining that game can cost that much. They should be able to maintain that game for years on the initial sale of that game. They are only enhancing a game already made, and tweaking it as it goes. So lets say that it costs the same to maintain as it did to make that console game, and it cost 3x as much to develop. 60 - 21 = 39 / 7 =~ 5 years at break even. So lets say they introduce content that they charge for (expansions) once a year (1mil * $10) - 7mil (develop new content and sell at 10 bucks each)-they can even not offer to sell, just charge a yearly subscription of $10- is another profit at 3 mil a year. Let me clarify all number of maintenance are high, and expansions (subscriptions) are equal content and energy as the main game, therefore costs are same as a new game development. Over that 5 years there is a profit of 15 million +. Doesn't seem so far fetched now does it? But of course they companies are greedy aren't they? http://hardcodedgames.com/mmpgamedev/2005/03/can-b lizzard-survive-world-of-warcraft.html
predicts that Blizzard will have 840 Mil after the first 4 years. Lots, but do you really need to pay for that? Is that 15 bucks a month paying for maintaining or lining someones pocket? Is there room to compete, oh hell yes, and companies are greedy and we are feeding them because they say so.

Any MMPOGer will come up with this argument that its for maintaining the game, but really the only way I see it is that the publisher is taxing you for nothing and is laughing at you all the way to the bank, because you keep deluding yourself into thinking that it has to be that way! I don't have a problem with companies making lots of money, or even me paying for top quality products. But this 'We have to maintain the game' crap is not true.

(Upon looking up the subscription base there are 1.5 million WoW subscribers making my calculations more, but using the 1 million still proves my point)

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[wolfmanXUG]

They only mention it in sales table, but Guild Wars is one of the best selling MMORPGs because it has no monthly fee. Well thats because its not really a MMORPG, but a clone of Diablo, yes I own both and I play both so I know what I am talking about. So quit being a marketing moron and passing along false information about this being a MMORPG. I would call it an OPRG.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Jarnis]

The immersion comes from the fact that when you do stuff in the gameworld, a human can help or hinder you at moment's notice.

Playing single player games is boring. Playing single player games cooperatively with couple of friends is almost as boring.

But when you get gankz0red while peacefully exping because you didn't pay attention, you tend to remember that you are not alone in the game, and it's a tough world out there.

Guild Wars = nice carebear-friendly instaced-everything bother-nobody-ever gameplay with soft padded walls around everything. Boooooring. The only good bits are the medieval quake matches, and they are bit too simple for my taste. It's not a bad game, just not for me.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[lgw]

The immersion comes from the fact that when you do stuff in the gameworld, a human can help or hinder you at moment's notice.

The suck comes from the fact that just about every time you try to do anything in the gameworld, some damn human is bound to come along and hinder you at a moment's notice. I bet you're one of them.

Playing single player games is boring. Playing single player games cooperatively with couple of friends is almost as boring.

Just because you find a game boring if you can't go spoil someone else's experience doesn't make a game "Not an MMORPG" if it instances adventure areas.

But when you get gankz0red while peacefully exping because you didn't pay attention, you tend to remember that you are not alone in the game, and it's a tough world out there.

You're making my arguments for me now. Free-for-all PvP severs are always a small niche in these games, because most people who get ganked while peacefully exploring just cancel their accounts, and go find a game where they can have, you know, fun.

carebear-friendly

Ahhh, that was your entire argument, I see. You only like a game where you can gank people. You know, most people like to play the actual game, where you are the sort of worthless parasite that only enjoys ruining other people's fun. Please don't play any game I ever play, at least until you grow up.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[MikeFM]

I think they should give the programs away for free and allow you to setup your own, albiet smaller, worlds to play with friends for free from your own computer, and only pay a subscription fee if you want to play in the big worlds. That way you get a free hit and get hooked and go for the bigger addicition. I'm not willing to pay $50 to try out games and THEN have to pay for a subscription.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[jchenx]

Okay, WoW is an exception, because of how unbelievably popular it has become. In my original post, I actually thought about calling that one out, since it's really obvious that Blizzard is making a LOT more money off subscriptions than they could spend on maintenance.

However, I doubt you can say the same for many other MMOs ... especially the less popular ones that are still around, like the original EQ, UO, DAoC, etc. Many of them were popular enough to drive some serious profit. However, once MMOs get to the tail end of their lives, they certainly don't generate nearly as much revenue. I would imagine that some of the previous profits would have been saved to keep the servers up and running as long as possible. So in retrospect, charging $15 per month from the beginning may actually be a good idea after all. We've already seen one major MMO close down due to lack of funds (Asheron's Call 2).

If Blizzard could time-travel and tell itself how popular it would become, maybe they would have dropped the monthly price, knowing that $15 was way more than enough to fund server maintenance, etc. Then again, they might have done the opposite and charge even MORE. :)

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Lisandro]

The thing is no one forces you to buy brand "X" when you want to refill the tank in your car "X". You can go to any gas station and buy it, or make your own biodiesel, or install a gas kit, or whatever. Same with computers - you don't buy your power from Dell.

    What bothers me is that the game you bought is useless unles you keep paying to the vendor.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Hubbell]

You obviously know jackshit about MMORPG PVP worlds, so shut the fuck up and never speak about PVP again.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Jarnis]

Actually, you are gravely mistaken.

I'm not a 'ganker d00d'. I derive no enjoyment from ganking defenseless people. But the 'alternative' offered - nobody can hurt you, so you might as well be playing single player - is kinda pointless as well.

To me, enjoyment comes from playing MMOs that do not feel like a padded cells with everyone wielding a foam rubber bat.

My current favourite is EVE Online. The whole core of the game is PvP. Note, this is different from 'ganking' and 'griefing'. In EVE once you learn the ropes, in order to advance, you need to leave the kiddie pool of Empire Space, and either sink or swim.

In order to survive in the 'open' areas of 0.0 space, where everything goes and whoever has the biggest guns & largest fleets says if you can ever enter the areas, you need to have diplomatic skill, combat skill and solid gameplan. Pointless ganking will get you labelled as pirate, and every living soul in 0.0 will shoot you to small bits on sight - which is way too expensive in the long run, as every ship going 'boom' actually costs ingame currency, and the amounts are NOT tiny. Make yourself worthwhile to a big alliance, and soon you have people funding your PvP ships that you then use to defend the people that do the funding. Or you can go other way around - get to (ab)use the riches of the low security space with the protection of player 'guards' keeping the space secure, but in return you pay a share of your profits to fund said defense.

So, in EVE, if you want to kill someone, you *can* do so, but like in real life, murdering sprees rarely pay off. Sure, there is no 'permadeath' in EVE, but it's as close to it as you can have in an MMO. High end combat ship going BOOM with all the shiny stuff can mean several weeks of recouping your losses. When everyone is packing big guns, and every death truly hurts, people tend to use those big guns responsibly. Diplomacy plays a lot bigger role - large alliance just threatening to use those big guns (in large numbers, with large alliance bankroll to cover any losses) is a much bigger deal than the actual battles that follow. Unsurprisingly EVE's playerbase is quite mature compared to general maturity level of MMOs.

Large scale wars, diplomacy, manufacturing, mining... with hundreds of players in cooperative alliances watching each other's back to survive in the most 'hostile' environment there is in a MMO just makes any 'padded cell, go ahead, fight a bit, nobody will lose anything meaningful and if you die you'll be back ready to fight in 30 seconds' games kinda weak.

And Guild Wars is kinda weak, because the combat is ultimately pointless, and there is no game universe with any kind of immersiveness. A nice medieval quake in a padded cell with no real stakes, but not really to my taste.

Bit like, say, WoW battlegrounds. Or your average quick bash on a public CounterStrike server.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Damvan]

You made a pretty big leap there calling this guy a ganker and griefer simply because he likes PvP servers. And, at least in WoW, PvP servers are far from a "small niche" in the game.

We get your point, you don't like PvP, or at least PvP servers in a MMORPG. But many people do. I play on a PvP server because I like the challenge of going up against a real live human being rather than a AI controlled opponent. And many others do as well.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[SScorpio]

It really depends on what you consider an MMORPG. At the bare minimum Guild Wars is an MORPG (Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). The debate is whether or not the game qualifies as "massive".

In the traditional view of the MMORPG there are servers where you create our character. You character is then tied to that server and any friends starting up must play on our server to play with you. You generally do not have a method to migrate your characters between servers. Guild Wars is different. Only the towns and outposts are where you can join up with other characters; however, there is no concept of a server so you can easily meetup with anyone that has an account in the game.

In a traditional MMORPG you are always surrounded by other players whether you like it or not. This allows players to meet and form relationships in the game. Guild Wars on the other hand is different. It is harder to meet other people in game beyond meeting to work together on a Mission or Quest, or grouping for PVP. This eliminates some of the ability to meet some other people but it removes the ability of someone Griefing. Asshats can no longer move into a newbie area and kill them, or monopolize a needed mob or resource, the concept of Ganking is also gone. The only way players can now Grief are to be let into parties and then aggroing multiple mob groups to kill off the party or grabbing a needed quest item and not going along with the party. Time is wasted in both cases; however, death has no permanent effect on your character or wealth in the game. The final type of Griefing is people joining PVP groups and then leaving before the match begins or midmatch. This will generally tip the balance to the party with more players, but sometimes the people who got screwed come out ahead.

And returning to the topic about the game being massive or not. Since you can play anyone who has an account, you can play with anyone in the entire world. There are currently PVP championships going on that will have finals Feb. 16th or so in Taipai. They took two teams from each Korea, America, and Europe and will pit them against each other to determine who is the best in the world. However, challenging players from Europe and Korea while being in the US is a common everyday occurance in the game. Who knows you might meet people in a match and then join the international districts and adventure with them.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[SScorpio]

The only issue I have with time estimates of how long you play MMORPGs is are you actually enjoying the game you are playing? Are you enjoying going on the same raid for the 50th time. Do you like crafting wicker baskets for 2 hours straight to raise your weaving skill? Yes most people get a lot of gametime for their money in an MMORPG, but how much of that time is playing and how much of it is spent doing a virtual job?

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Snaller]

There is also http://www.guildwars.com/ which has a client and looks really nice, its fairly primitive in gameplay, unless you thrive on PvP.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Snaller]

I'm worried that I'm going to have to spend large amounts of money on gear to continue to play.

I don't know how old you are, but aren't you worried that young kids who can play 12 hours a day are going to get much better gear then you even when they aren't cheating?

That's one of the reasons that I don't really care if people cheat, in as much as it affects me there is little difference in the effect on me.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[AuMatar]

Nope. WHen games get all about gear, I quit them. Thats why I recently quit WoW.

My concern is more about games like Project Entropia and the upcoming Roma Victor, where the only way to get in game money is to buy it, or get someone else to buy it and get it from them. EBay doesn't bother me- in fact I use it to make games playable for longer. Its when the game company itself gets in on it that I worry- they have an incentive then to make it impossible to get items and accomplish goals without spending lots of money.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Anonymous Coward]

When everyone is packing big guns, and every death truly hurts, people tend to use those big guns responsibly.

Hence the 2nd Amendment.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[KDR_11k]

Phantasy Star Online. If we ignore the "not really massive" bit for now...

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Snaller]

But games are never about gear, they become that in the MINDS of some people (like you :). But a lot of the rest of us don't care, not even in Wow - you want to waste time trying to get gear - well your choice.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[AuMatar]

Unfortunately, in WoW if you want to PvP competitively, you need gear. This wasn't as true 6 months ago, when you could get good enough gear without MC runs. Nowdays, you're at a supreme disadvantage if you don't have high level raid gear. Its one thing to lose because the other guy is better than you, its no longer any fun when he can beat you because he spent more time gearing up than you. And 5-6 hr long raids every weekend for gear are not fun.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[lgw]

Well, I've lead 100+ player PvP raids. But free-for-all PvP servers have never been a success compared to normal MMORPG servers.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[lgw]

Except, of coure, I *like* PvE! I have no interest in doing politics, project planning, and contingency planning in a fantasy world for entertainment. That's the shit I put up with in real life, and you have to pay me an aweful lot to do so.

PvP can be a lot of fun, but only if the game guarentees a fair fight. Yes, the Guild Wars PvP is a bit simple, hard to care much about, but then I don't play it for the PvP. The same system with real maps and real complexity in team v team combat would be great. No need for anyone to ever get ambushed while they weren't interested in PvP.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[lgw]

There's a difference between PvP in general, and free-for-all PvP, where anyone can attack anyone else at any time. All servers in DAoC have realm-based PvP, for example, but when they made free-for-all PvP servers they flopped after huge initial interest. Everyone realized *they* weren't going to the the top of the pecking order and dropped.

There have been a couple of all-PvP-all-the-time MMORPGs, but none has ever made it big in, at least America or Europe. You can't argue with the success of Lineage in Asia, I guess.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Snaller]

I see what you mean. Yes that is unfortunate - don't know how they could fix though.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[AuMatar]

Fix it now? They can't. Not without doing something unheard of by MMO standards (maybe make everyone who kills a raid boss get to choose 1 loot item, so you only need to run each raid a few times). They could have not had the problem ever occur by not making the gear in MC/BWL so powerful- just mild enhancements ober UBRS/strat/scholo/DM gear.

Re:I can't justify that sort of monthly expense

[Hubbell]

Free For All PVP is the ONLY way to go with PVP. Restrictions breeds carebears. www.darkfallonline.com One of the most anticipated MMO's, and solely by word of mouth. Oh, it's 10k server pops (planned) and full loot + full open PVP with no restrictions.

Not jump on the "Guild Wars is freeee" bandwagon..

[Kazzahdrane]

But I bought it a couple of weeks ago and have played it for maybe 20 hours so far. It seems pretty good but for the last few days I've been struck down with a horrible illness that's left me with little energy to do anything except sit and wait to get better, including...playing games.

There's the beauty of the Guild Wars model for me, when I played WoW I'd be annoyed if I couldn't play for an extended period of time (my trip to the USA for the whole of June last year, for example) since I'd be paying for that time even though I wasn't actually getting anything out of it. With GW I don't have that annoyance and don't feel I should be playing more than I feel like just to make sure I get a "good deal" on a monthly subscription charge.

New type of player is going to ruin their world

[Tipa]

If you pay a monthly fee, you will feel more obligated to pay. So you will put more time into advancing your character. You don't want to think all your time spent advancing your character is all for nothing, so you play for another month, and another month...

Playing for free, well, you can play an hour, set it aside for a month, then play for a night or two. This is not building the sort of brand loyalty that is going to make Blizzard or Sony rich. And without those big bucks coming in, they won't be spending big bucks making new features or opening new servers. Bucks in, bucks out.

So they try to get you hooked and keep you hooked.

This isn't going to work for long, because there is a middle course. There are those of us who love MMOs, but no longer have much loyalty. We have characters in LOTS of games. Sure, I play WoW now, but I could always pick FFXI up again, or CoH, or SWG (I guess), or dive back into EQ, or just give them all up and start playing Vanguard.

Loyalty works when you don't have many choices. But now, there are lots of choices, and more every month. Soon, people will be quitting games on a whim, knowing that the publishers of those games will keep those servers chugging away and their characters saved in case they someday return.

And that's going to cost them money.

Re:New type of player is going to ruin their world

[lgw]

I certainly won't pay $15 a month for a game I'm not playing right now. I *had* characters in many MMORPG worlds, but recently they've started getting deleting by the game companies - some after just a few months!

It's weird getting email from one of these companies "Come back to our world! BTW, we deleted half your characters to get te names back, but come back anyway!"

Re:New type of player is going to ruin their world

[SScorpio]

I completely agree with you. It is pointless to pay for the games to keep your characters active, and it is pretty shitty of the companies to delete inactive characters. At the very least keep the character but make the name be changed when the player rejoins. Only then there is confusion when a player attempts to recontact their old friends.

To the OP. You say Sony and Blizzard can't get rich while not charging a monthly fee. It's true that they might not have the same level of WoW having 5 Million players (are all those accounts even active and paying people?) but by making a MMORPG that has no monthly fee but expansions with content worth paying the new price of a game for. Release two expansions a year and you could be raking in the money. Look at past Blizzard games like Starcraft and Diablo and how many people played them online. Now picture a good number of them buying two expansions your company put out that year as well.

ArenaNET is wagering on that with Guild Wars since pre-orders for the second chapter are going for $50 (price of a new game) but it is supposed to give the same amount of content as the original game, and it's standalone so you don't need to buy the original to play the expansion. Players who don't buy certain expansions just will not be able to create characters of classes from those expansions. We'll see if ArenaNET pulls it off, it must might change the way people think about and play MMORPGs.

Re:New type of player is going to ruin their world

[lgw]

Blizzard sold a truely absurd number of copies of Diablo-franchise games. 40 million? 140 million? something stupid like that. You don't have to look farther than Blizzard itself to see that a company can make a healthy profit without the monthly fee.

Re:New type of player is going to ruin their world

[SScorpio]

Exactly which is why it's good to keep an eye on ArenaNET. Their main developers are all ex-Blizzard employees who formed Battle.NET from the ground up, and they were also part of the Diablo teams. For people they haven't tried Guild Wars it definately has the Blizzard polish they are famous for. Hopefully they can pull of this business plan and we'll see more game adopt it.

Nothing wrong with monthly fees!

[Max Threshold]

I don't mind paying monthly fees. In fact, I'd prefer a game where the business model is driven entirely by that, so there's no incentive to muck the game up with sketchy expansions.

I'm currently hooked on Dark Age of Camelot. One of the things I absolutely hate about it is that each new expansion pack has introduced obscenely overpowered races, classes, and items, presumably to entice everyone to rush out and buy it. In the process, classic races and classes have been rendered obsolete, and whole zones of the game world have been left empty and forgotten. Not only is this a source of frustration for players who don't feel like starting a new character, but from a business standpoint, it seems like a terribly inefficient way to develop a game. They've basically thrown out all the time and energy they invested into designing those old zones and classes. And in their rush to market, the quality control on the expansions is terrible. Trials of Atlantis was released, what, two and a half years ago? They've come out with two major expansions since then, Catacombs and Darkness Rising, yet the ToA encounters are still riddled with bugs, and they're still grudgingly undoing the horrible game balance issues introduced by ToA.

Re:Nothing wrong with monthly fees!

[lgw]

They've basically thrown out all the time and energy they invested into designing those old zones and classes

I played DAoC for a while from the day it went live. My chosen class was obsolete from day 1! In there first months, there were only like 2 monster models in all of Hibernia (everydamnthing was a Spriggen) and there was no loot dropped in any of the high-level dungeons. There was also no high-level crafted gear, so basically everyone had green gear at high level. Energy invested? Not so much.

If you're only playing because you hope it will get better, give up now. It's not that kind of company. If you're having fun, and not just logging on out of habit and tryinbg to "make progress", then more power to you.

Re:Nothing wrong with monthly fees!

[Max Threshold]

But then they dumped a bunch of time and energy into fixing up those zones. I mostly play Alb, and I used to love fighting in the Catacombs of Cordova, Lyonesse, or Llyn Barfog. Nobody goes there anymore, and there's not much reason to; the new zones have so much better drops. Why did they make the new zones, when they could have just fixed up the old ones? Or why not a little of both?

Likewise, none of the old really awesome loot is worth anything anymore, because the new stuff is so much more powerful. It's hard to get people interested in a Caer Sidi raid anymore, even though it had the best loot tables in the game when it came out. All the effort put into designing that dungeon... wasted. Bugs never fixed. It's a shame.

Re:Not jump on the "Guild Wars is freeee" bandwago

[antdude]

Time cards are useful for that. However it is for two months though and cost a little more than paying online. I use game cards because 1) I don't play a lot online and 2) I don't buy/pay online.

Eve Online

[Odin_Tiger]

I like the Eve Online model, myself. The game is free to buy and can be downloaded from their site. Monthly fees are about average for the market, and go down if you buy them in larger quantities at a time. You can cancel your subscription and they will hold your character and account for a -very- long time (they did it for me for 8mo) without you paying a nickel, and you can resume with all your cash, skills, items, etc. later, so cancelling a subscription for a 1mo vacation, or while you move if you know it will take a month or two to get the 'net hooked up again, or whatever, and it's all good. Also, the server goes down for 1hr. a day for maintenance, and patches / x-packs are released (free of charge) on a regular basis. That's not to mention that they regularly set records for most players simultaneously playing on a single server, or that they are ranked at the top on mmorpg.com for quite some time. It's an awesome model, and something I would love to see other companies strive to meet.

Re:Eve Online

[kindbud]

I just resumed playing EVE after an absence of 2 1/2 years, and everything is still there, including the last in-game email I got, which was from my insurance company about the loss of my Exequeror cruiser. My character even finished Gallente Cruiser Level IV training while my account was cancelled.

Re:Eve Online

[Snaller]

I like a space environment, but what i don't like about eve is the tiny letters in their interface. I simply can't read them, and that is the way with most games, they seem to be designed by 20 somethings for 20 somethings with perfect vision. World of Warcraft on the the other hand has a scaleing engine in the interface, a simple addon and you can scale all items (and not just the chat as clueless support usually suggest).

Re:Eve Online

[DarkGreenNight]

The font problem was introduced with the last expansion patch, previously it was crystal clear (this new font ha multilingual support or something similar, that's the reason of the change). Some people seem not to notice any problem with the font (and rudely tell the ones with problems to go to have their eyes checked). Other have headaches. And others agree that it's really difficult to read. I can hardly notice the decimal points. For what I know CCP is already looking into this.

At least the company seems quite responsive when players agree that there is a problem with something, and looks into the problems. Not as fast as some might like, but better than most (from what I've heard).

If only there was a similar game but fantasy, for when you want to kill things with your bare hands... it's hard to get without a fantasy fix.

Re:Eve Online

[Snaller]

I don't think it was introduced in the last patch, I think it has been there all the time - for some of us. I got into the beta and promptly stopped again because I couldn't read the font - I told them about it then, and they promptly couldn't care less.

Generate revenue another way

[TPJ-Basin]

ArenaNet (developers of Guild Wars) did away with monthly payments to play, but instead decided to generate their additional revenue by way of expansion modules. The first one should be on the shelves fairly soon. Included in the modules are things like additional playable races, more lands to discover, additional items and skills, etc. Instead of forcing the users to pay every month whether they play or not, it is up to the users themselves whether (and when!) to purchase the modules. As noted elsewhere here, being away from your computer for a few weeks doesn't feel like throwing money away!

Flagship Studios' forthcoming debut title Hellgate:London will likely follow a similar path.

I run a very sucessful online gaming community, but never have much time to play. Avoiding being locked into a monthly fee suits me just fine.

Problem of maintaining hardware

[192939495969798999]

You get into a dangerous cost game when you host a MMOG. Suppose you have 10000 people pay 50 bucks, so now you have 500k. However, over the course of a year, those people don't have to pay anything extra, and you have to give them access to the server, which costs money to maintain, bandwidth costs, etc. Where does the money for that come from? If you get new subscribers, that can stave it off for a little while, but eventually you need more cash from the existing customer base to maintain the system access, capacity, and reliability... right?

Re:Problem of maintaining hardware

[jchenx]

Exactly. It's not an easy thing to predict populations, which is why most MMOs when they launch have server problems. If you had a steady stream of new users, the constant supply of $50 might do it. Arguably, though, if you build an MMO, your goal is to keep players in the game, and that's mighty expensive over time.

Another alternative would be to increase the initial cost of the game, but I'd gather more people would be hesitant on paying $100 to get in a game (especially if they don't know how much they'll like it). I'd rather pay $50, get my free month, and use that to gauge whether or not I want to invest anymore time and money on it.

15$ ??

[Anonymous Coward]

People pay 50$ or more for cable, but do they watch it 24 hours a day to feel like they justified spending 50$ on it? Now, I don't watch much television, so the basic service that came packaged with my rent does just fine. To me, a MMOG makes a perfect substitution for American Idol, Friends reruns, or any of the Survivor shows. To me, 15$ is the cost of a movie and popcorn, so if I get 3 hours of entertainment out of a MMOG a month, I don't feel like it's that bad of a deal.

Re:15$ ??

[Anonymous Coward]

The next time I pay $15/month to get just one television SHOW, let alone STATION, I might agree... Otherwise, that's just a bad analogy.

With cable, I'm not stuck just watching CSpan. I can watch the Discover Channel, or Scifi, or Fox News, or the Travel Channel, or whatever. (I can't come up with any reason why I'd watch ANY of those channels, but you get the idea.)

I'd rather pay $50/month and get to watch a variety of channels, than pay $15/month and be locked into one game.

Re:15$ ??

[snuf23]

"The next time I pay $15/month to get just one television SHOW, let alone STATION, I might agree... Otherwise, that's just a bad analogy."

Well, then how about the movie analogy? Where I live I have to pay $9 for a movie ticket and $5 for a soda and popcorn. So that's almost the cost of a month of an MMO for ONE viewing of ONE movie.

Re:15$ ??

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't watch movies in theaters, because I can't justify the expense. (Even if I did, I don't bother with concessions, because I happen to like watching movies and not eating or drinking during them. So most theaters hate me anyway.)

So, I suppose that's a good analogy. A movie is also something that's far too expensive for the amount of entertainment gained.

Re:15$ ??

[snuf23]

"So, I suppose that's a good analogy. A movie is also something that's far too expensive for the amount of entertainment gained."

Right, from where you stand. Obviously a lot of people don't feel that way about movies. Personally, I rarely go to the movies because of the cost. I do play MMOs because I feel that the 20+ hours I spend playing them a month are entertaining enough for the cost. Before I moved in with my girlfriend, I didn't have cable TV because I don't consider it worth the cost as I rarely watch any TV shows.
Obviously entertainment value is subjective, but for the "normal" player of MMO games, the cost breaks down to less than a dollar an hour, considerably cheaper than a movie.

Yeah, because subscription really hurt WoW

[SmallFurryCreature]

Just read the article and look at the sales for WoW (subscription) vs Guild Wars (free to play). And that is without WoW's continued monthly income of a few million times 14.95

Oh sure, there will always be people who say they won't pay a subscription on top of the box fee. Some of the more insane even bring up their internet connection fee. This is a bit like people who object to having to pay for gas after they bought a car. Even when they pay roadtax!!! The outrage!

WoW has proven that whatever anyone thought about the MMO industry was wrong. The market had not been saturated. There was no objection against paying a monthly fee. People were not tired of fantasy worlds with orcs and elves.

People just wanted a game that was fun to play without to many game crippling bugs. No matter how rough WoW has been it was nothing compared to games like EQ and UO wich were at launch so bad it begged believe.

The subscription fee however is indeed a barrier. Against kiddies seeking to grief. While it doesn't stop them the costs involved keep games like WoW and EQ/SWG cleaner then say a guildwars. As to the few totally free games. Well, browse slashdot at -1 for an instant impression.

There will be different ways of "selling" an MMO but I think the old and tried box+monthy subscription model is far from death. In fact WoW should have revived it a lot. Wich company could possibly resists years of receiving hundreds of millions of revenue. Most game companies drool at the thought of making that during the launch of a game and Blizzard is doing it month after month after month.

SOE failed, Blizzard succeeded. Now it will be intresting to see if anyone else can copy WoW's success or wether it was something unique.

Re:Yeah, because subscription really hurt WoW

[Eightyford]

Though I see your point, the article was talking about MMOG branching out to people that are reluctant to pay a monthly fee for a game. WoW is popular, no doubt, but there is still a much larger user base to be had.

Re:Yeah, because subscription really hurt WoW

[drinkypoo]

The difference between buying a car and then having to pay registration and fuel taxes is that you can sell your car and get money for it if you get tired of playing that particular fee game. If you have a game with a non-transferable account then you lose that option. Also, you can still play with the car off-road (dirt or track, or on your own property) but the MMOGs have no single-player mode.

Most slashdotters cannot make suitable automotive metaphors and they need to stop trying.

Re:Yeah, because subscription really hurt WoW

[Snaller]

Some of the more insane even bring up their internet connection fee. This is a bit like people who object to having to pay for gas after they bought a car.

No. It isn't. Its more like people buying a car and then complaining that they have to send a montly fee to ford.

$15 = one movie with popcorn and a drink

[hab136]

2-3 hours at a movie = $15.

If you spend more than 3 hours having fun in a MMORPG, it's well worth the $15/month.

I don't get why people are adverse to such a small monthly fee.

Re:$15 = one movie with popcorn and a drink

[supabeast!]

"I don't get why people are adverse to such a small monthly fee."

Given the growth of the industry since the release of Everquest, it seems that people don't mind paying the monthly fee as long as the games are enjoyable. I think most articles about MMO fees are really a symptom of the industry being afraid to write anything meaningful that might piss of an advertiser.

Re:$15 = one movie with popcorn and a drink

[Snaller]

Because its slavery, you have to keep paying to keep your character. Now if you could download it and keep it when you stopped that would be something else.

Re:$15 = one movie with popcorn and a drink

[hab136]

>Because its slavery, you have to keep paying to keep your character. Now if you could download it and keep it when you stopped that would be something else.

WoW keeps characters indefinitely, actually. You can cancel your account, then come back a year later, and it's still there.

Let's say they did allow you do download your character. You now have an XML file describing your stats, reputations, equipment, and gold. What exactly did you plan to do with this? You can achieve the same thing by registering your profile on allakazam or wowguru.

P.S. if you are having problems with the stylesheet, you can turn on "Simple Design" and "Low Bandwidth" in the options: http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=edithome

Re:$15 = one movie with popcorn and a drink

[Snaller]

WoW keeps characters indefinitely, actually.

Not from what I heard.

Let's say they did allow you do download your character. You now have an XML file describing your stats, reputations, equipment, and gold. What exactly did you plan to do with this?

Thats not the point.

P.S. if you are having problems with the stylesheet,

Yes the problem is that sometimes pages show up blank. Though not always so perhaps its a combination of their new stylesheet and some adds.
you can turn on "Simple Design"

I know, it looks awfull.

Re:$15 = one movie with popcorn and a drink

[hab136]

WoW keeps characters indefinitely, actually.

Not from what I heard.

http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowbilling/?id=abl 01131p

"If your subscription ends and there is no payment information listed on the account then it will become frozen and inaccessible for play. Provided that the characters do not get deleted by the account holder, we will retain all character information on our servers indefinitely."

Seems pretty clear to me - unless you yourself delete the character, they will hold on to it. Makes sense - they want you to come back.

Let's say they did allow you do download your character. You now have an XML file describing your stats, reputations, equipment, and gold. What exactly did you plan to do with this?

Thats not the point.

What is the point? I'm afraid I've missed it. Besides, even though Blizzard doesn't provide that option, a number of sites (allakazam, wowguru) exist that will let you do just that - extract your profile from the game, and save it. For example: http://www.wowguru.com/ui/48/wow-guru-data-collect ion/

Re:$15 = one movie with popcorn and a drink

[Snaller]

"Seems pretty clear to me"

Yes, now I've heard different.

"What is the point? "

That you have to keep paying for something you can't have or own even though you feel proprietary towards it.

Guild Wars is NOT an MMOG

[vjmurphy]

Guild Wars is NOT an MMOG. Or, rather, if you call GW a MMOG, then all games that consist of a lobby area and instanced versions of the game are also MMOG: Counterstrike, Unreal Tournament, etc. There's a big difference between playing with a group of people in an instance and with a large number of players in a large zone.

Guild Wars is an evolution of Diablo 2 and it is a fun game, but it isn't a MMOG comparable to WoW, Everquest, etc. In fact, Battlefield 2 is more of a MMOG than Guild Wars, I'd argue.

Re:Guild Wars is NOT an MMOG

[vmardian]

In GW, your avatars and all their belongings are persistent. This is not the case in CS or UT. I call GW an MMORPG.

Re:Guild Wars is NOT an MMOG

[suspected]

I would like to extend on what the parent poster mentioned. While most of you believe Guild Wars is a MMORPG, it is no such thing. Guild Wars is only a MMORPG to players who don't realize what a true MMORPG is. Let me explain: I quit WoW for about six months because I got tired of level 60. When I came back to it six months later, WoW had drastically changed. Not only where there battlegrounds and the talent tree of some classes fully revamped, but many instances and minor events throughout the entire game were tweaked for the better. World of Warcraft is a beautiful game with stunning art that keeps updating every month. The expansions that are to come are only much larger updates then that of those that occur roughly once a month. Guild Wars on the other hand does not do anything more than a few bug fixes and tweaks when it patches; these patches are even small compared to the Diablo 2 patches Blizzard offered for its free games. Guild Wars graphics are very simplistic in nature; they're nothing compared to the heavy graphics of WoW spells. Guild Wars does not have many spells/abilities like blink, frost nova, blizzard, shadow form, charge, stealth, and levitate to name a few. Most guild wars spells are simple buffs/debuffs type or damage-modifiers; I was very disappointed when I found out how terribly implemented the barrage spell was for the Ranger class. Few of the Guild Wars spells are very unique; however, it does have a few cool spells such as a poison nova-like spell, but the graphics for it are rather simple and often hard to notice. I've played both games and I feel I can safely say that WoW, at this stage, has at least three times as much content as Guild Wars, and that's being very generous to Guild Wars on my part. The difference will only grow as the years progress and I won't be expecting Guild Wars to change much. I almost feel bad for not explaining all the other advantages WoW has over Guild Wars for being a true MMO, but I think I've said enough for now. If you've leveled a character to max in both games, however, I think the difference will become painstakingly obvious and undeniable. With all this said I ask for just one thing: Please don't call Guild Wars a MMO anymore; it's a fun game but it's just not fair to compare it to actually MMO games.

Re:Guild Wars is NOT an MMOG

[geniusj]

Ouch. I've played both WoW and Guild Wars extensively, and I would have to say that Guild Wars wins in the graphics category. They have a different style of graphics, definitely, however. WoW goes more for the larger, lower resolution textures/graphics. In Guild Wars, things tend to be smaller and higher res. The artistic qualities of both are outstanding.

Now, do you know why Guild Wars has such small patches?

It's because they can! They have absolutely mastered their patching/streaming system, and can patch the server and the client without kicking all of their players out of the game.

They are definitely two different types of games. The best way for me to describe Guild Wars to someone is to say that it's a combination of Diablo and Magic: The Gathering. It takes quite a bit of skill and though to truly master your character in Guild Wars, and the possibilities for character variety as far as abilities and spells varies greatly. Now, if they could only make it so your character LOOKED more unique...

Re:Guild Wars is NOT an MMOG

[drinkypoo]

Look, if it supports a crapload of simultaneous interacting players, and it's an online game, then it's a MMOG. If it's a RPG, with persistent characters, then it's also a MMORPG. I mean, the definition is right there in the name... Whether you like it or not has nothing to do with anything.

Re:Guild Wars is NOT an MMOG

[lgw]

I almost feel bad for not explaining all the other advantages WoW has over Guild Wars

I'm sure that WoW is "so wonderful, it's just like drinking unicorn giggles". If you're not actually getting paid by Blizzard for this post, then you should apply right away!

Even by IGN standards, that was on over-the-top fanboy post.

Re:Guild Wars is NOT an MMOG

[suspected]

WoW is far from perfect and has many flaws; I didn't quit at level 60 because it was perfect, obviously. WoW's problems range from caster itemizations, to reputation proportions given for various battle grounds, and all the way to lack of small-group, high-end PvE encounters. I might be a bit of a fan boy of Blizzard, but Guild Wars also stems from the Blizzard team and I had high expectations for them.

I think Guild Wars is a fun game with problems of its own like every game in existence. However, even though Guild Wars is fun, it lacks a lot of content when compared to WoW. Comparing WoW instances to Guild War's missions is a joke; comparing WoW quests to the quests in Guild Wars is a joke; but comparing WoW's battlegrounds to Guild War's PvP system seems pretty even. Guild Wars has some nice stuff and some stuff that are not so good, but it's a good game with more than enough content for a regular game. However, for an MMORPG, Guild Wars would need much more content, items, quests, and high-end encounters. My expectations of a normal game and a MMO are far too different, and I just don't think people do justice to the MMO genre when they claim that Guild Wars is a MMO. Once again: fun game, but not a MMO.

Re:Guild Wars is NOT an MMOG

[Anonymous Coward]

Guild Wars is a MMOG. Persistant characters, weapons, interaction, worlds, and rank/score. All in a game. Thus, it is a MMOG.

Re:Guild Wars is NOT an MMOG

[aztektum]

I'd argue that it is. Unless MMOG doesn't mean massively multiplayer online game (look at it written like this: massively-multiplayer online game to see where the emphasis on the title really is). I do believe they have greater than 1 million players (quick google search gave up this clicky and that's a 9/05 post), offer a fairly large world to adventure in, but just because that world is instanced and not seamless like WoW, EQ, etc., doesn't NOT qualify it for the title of Massively Multiplayer Online Game.

Re:Guild Wars is NOT an MMOG

[lgw]

Playing solo, Guild Wars has vast amounts of content at the highest level you can reach. Does WoW have any? Everything IN GW can be done with 1 team, but that's a huge problem with the WoW endgame.

I'm sure WoW has some very cool content for 60-player raids, but I'll never do that stuff again in any game, too much politics and too much drama. If you only consider something a "real MMO" if you can do 60-player raids, I can't argue GW is not an MMO in that sense.

Re:Not jump on the "Guild Wars is freeee" bandwago

[slavemowgli]

I second that. I play Guild Wars on occasion, but by no means often; on average, I'd say I don't log in more than once a month or so to spend an evening there with friends.

With WoW or EQ, that would simply be impossible, as I'd have to pay a significant amount each month that would not decrease no matter how little I actually played. Guild Wars, on the other hand, allows me to do this without losing a fortune.

So it's Guild Wars for me, and Blizzard and Sony lost a sale each.

Interesting to note the Planetside announcements.

[RobinH]

Recently, developers of the game Planetside announced you would be able to try it free for 12 months (you will be limited to battle rank 6), and you have to pay for access after that. Most players can make it to BR6 in a month, of course, and they're hoping people will purchase a subscription. The game only costs $20 to buy and that comes with a one month subscription, which is $12 to $15 a month after that, depending on contract length.

I bought in back when you had to buy the box, but even then it was only $20, which is probably enough to cover their expenses in distribution. I think that was quite reasonable.

Re:Not jump on the "Guild Wars is freeee" bandwago

[Anonymous Coward]

GW is the reason I will *NEVER* pay a monthly fee again. I think that part of the addiction people have with these games is they feel like they need to be playing every single chance they get in order rationalize the $15 a month.

For a the first few months GW was out i brushed it off as not being as good as games like wow or coh because it didn't have some ridiculous monthly fee.

Now that i've been playing it for a bit, it has my vote for the best online game ever.. makes it fun and easy enough for casual gamers and interesting and in depth enough for the hardcore guys. It's a lot easier to pickup and put down then any game I've played. I don't have to set aside hours and hours just to make progress, I can jump in and see some real progress after playing for only an hour or so. No more playing 3 days straight to advance to the next level just so i can pick some skill that ends up being worthless.

Problems with revenue models and game

[Waingro]

WoW did do something right. It used an established revenue model and simply did what Blizzard does best; make quality games that perfectly fit the genre. (Starcraft/Warcraft= arguably best RTS ever, WoW = arguably best MMO ever)

The real issue that I think these people are missing comes down to the fact they want to get console like revenue in the PC market via the MMO revenue model. They want to attract buyers that might pay $60 for the newest EA sports game but don't touch PC MMOs presumable for their time requirements and or monthly costs. I beta'ed Auto Assault. Sure it was fun, it was fast, but it also played like a Playstation game. The fact it was MMO was completely irrelevant to me. I could have just been just as satistified if all those people running around were NPCs. In the end, sure I might buy the game for $30, but would I ever pay to play beyond that? No, never.

IMHO if you are going to make an MMO then spend the time to make a quality game that is attractive to the targeted audience (aka, fantasy, SciFi) and yes follows the traditional model. Make quests more dynamic, make the world more interactive, make characters more customizable and unique to the player. (See some features of the new Eldar Scrolls: Oblivion, not MMO but great RPG concepts) If, on the other hand you want to make a "quick play, smaller scale" (aka cheaper to produce/maintain) game, why bother trying to fit the MMO model? Put it out for PS2/PS3/XBOX.

Games on the Cable Model

[Tipa]

EverQuest is still chugging along seven years after launch, still making money, still releasing expansions and enhancing the game. In what universe could you ever call SOE and by extension, EQ a failure. It's been an unqualified success.

In six more years, then you can compare WoW and EQ.

I play WoW. I sit in long queues every night. I get random disconnects. Farmers own places I would like to solo (they even try to sell people stuff in BGs). Some things are severely broken. The endgame is deathly dull and repetitive.

It's hardly the end-all, be-all of games.

I agree with you, though... the subscription model still seems like a wild success. But wouldn't it be even nicer if one subscription let you play any of a dozen games? And by that I mean real games, not a big game and ten you would never ever play.

Sort of like the cable service. 500 games. One fee.

Re:Games on the Cable Model

[lgw]

But WoW passed EQ in subscriber-years just a few months after release, right? From a business point of view, WoW is *already* more successful than EQ. I find WoW completely unappealing as a player, but it's a heck of a business model!

Re:Not jump on the "Guild Wars is freeee" bandwago

[ThePepe]

Hey I'll jump on that bandwagon. In fact, I did about 6 months ago.

MMO's the new Bingo?

[AdamThirteenth]

This article brought up an interesting revelation in my mind. It stated at the end how the number of retiree's playing MMO's is increasing. Now my mom and dad were born in the 50's, they'll be retiring in 10 years, and they introduced ME into gaming. My first memory is at 4 years old playing an educational game called Mixed Up Mother goose. As I got older I actually played Diablo II online (on the realms) with my mom when she was out of work. My dad played games like CnC Generals and the likes. My mom has recently even given games like EQ and WoW a shot. It makes perfect sense if they were to retire tomorrow (unlikely) that they would pick up MMO's. Even my grandma has confessed to me she's played her slot machine game until 4am on some nights ("wow grandma I didn't know we had that much in common") Now my conclusion is that if games become more user friendly to begin with, easier to pick up and get interested in and allow for a larger interest and larger market it is very possible and logical to me that retirees, in 15+ years (and even more so come the time gen X retires), may very well replace your typical retiree activities of today (think Bingo, knitting, romance novels, etc.) Compare the demographic similarities of your average mmo player (16-20 something) and a retiree: Lots of free time Moderate levels of expendable income (or access to it like parents/kids) The desire to do something that involves commitment and shows progress (think knitting, quilting, crafts) Now future retirees will have more tech savy and important factors like being able to understand a sort of virtual world, but other than both my parents slow repsonse time (another thing I think will slowly change) it seems perfectly viable for a retiree to be the next MMO demographic. Or maybe my family has a genetic addictive personality and for some reason all of it gets channeled into video games and vodka (in grandma's case)

Re:MMO's the new Bingo? (now with line breaks!)

[AdamThirteenth]

This article brought up an interesting revelation in my mind. It stated at the end how the number of retiree's playing MMO's is increasing. Now my mom and dad were born in the 50's, they'll be retiring in 10 years, and they introduced ME into gaming.

My first memory is at 4 years old playing an educational game called Mixed Up Mother goose. As I got older I actually played Diablo II online (on the realms) with my mom when she was out of work. My dad played games like CnC Generals and the likes. My mom has recently even given games like EQ and WoW a shot.

It makes perfect sense if they were to retire tomorrow (unlikely) that they would pick up MMO's. Even my grandma has confessed to me she's played her slot machine game until 4am on some nights ("wow grandma I didn't know we had that much in common")

Now my conclusion is that if games become more user friendly to begin with, easier to pick up and get interested in and allow for a larger interest and larger market it is very possible and logical to me that retirees, in 15+ years (and even more so come the time gen X retires), may very well replace your typical retiree activities of today (think Bingo, knitting, romance novels, etc.)

Compare the demographic similarities of your average mmo player (16-20 something) and a retiree:

Lots of free time

Moderate levels of expendable income (or access to it like parents/kids)

The desire to do something that involves commitment and shows progress (think knitting, quilting, crafts)


Now future retirees will have more tech savy and important factors like being able to understand a sort of virtual world will become more prevelant, but other than both my parents slow repsonse time (another thing I think will slowly change) it seems perfectly viable for a retiree to be the next MMO demographic. Or maybe my family has a genetic addictive personality and for some reason all of it gets channeled into video games and vodka (in grandma's case)

Smed-head

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> But monthly fees have been "a significant barrier" to growing
> the market, said John Smedley, president of Sony Online
> Entertainment, based in San Diego.

No, slapping your customers in the face with massive, constant nerfs to their beloved characters that, often, they may have more hours invested in than your own workers do in the game programming and design!

In any case, you get rid of fees, you pick up on initial sales, but you lose the fees. So you get a bunch of teenagers who are too lazy to take out the trash and earn an allowance. BFD. What do you want, initial sales or fees?

And, as WoW showed, the market for one single game is much larger than all your games put together, of all subscribers you've ever had. Clearly the monthly fee is only a part of the equation, and a much smaller part than you believe.

Re:Interesting to note the Planetside announcement

[Anonymous Coward]

Most players can make it to BR6 in a month,

A MONTH? I made it to BR16 a month. BR6 you can achieve within two days, tops.

The poor man's perspective

[Yomer333]

Having played both of these games (WoW/GW), I know what they're like. Is WoW a better game? Definitely. Is it worth the money? Probably. However, being a Poor Ass College Student(TM), that $15 a month seems like a fucking mountain of cash. I'm sitting here with $4 in my pocket, and short of pawning my clothes, it's all of my assets. I work (more than a student should), but with rent, food, gas, and other lame responsibilities, I'm doing just dandy with my free GW account.

p.s. WTS Shirt of Hanesosity, Crude leather pants

Re:The poor man's perspective

[mikek3332002]

Excellent point.
Also how many of these can be payed with cash without a penalty? GW, whereas Wow, EQ, etc all charge more for paying by Cash
How many actually have CC access?

It's the other way around

[Laplace]

I don't want to pay $50 for software that I then have to pay $15 a month to use. I don't quite understand why Blizzard doesn't make the WOW almost free or free (like $15 in store, with maybe a month of service). The $50 barrier to entry is what has kept me from playing.

Re:It's the other way around

[redcircle]

You get 1 month of service with that $50 you pay for.. so really yer only paying $35 for the game and $15 for that first month. You also get a 10day pass you can give to a friend so you have someone else addicted also.

Re:It's the other way around

[AdamThirteenth]

Well it seems supply and demand has spoken and they can get away with charging 50 bucks in stores seeing as how it's been wildly succesful. If I was at blizzard i'd see no reason to change.

Obviously being a consumer your bias (me to) and want cheaper, faster, and higher quality but it's just not realistic.

I happily pay my 15 a month. I like the movie analogy.. How much is it to go to a movie? or even worse a fair or some other entertainment venue? From an entertainment to cost ratio WoW owns everything, so why lower the price?

Paying monthly ensures quality patches, updates, and expansions. It pays for maintinence on the servers, ingame support (gm's), and anti cheat measures. Basically, it just ensures a quality gaming experience.

Re:It's the other way around

[DeeSnider]

I completely agree. I got a 14 day trial of City of Heroes with a PC gamer I bought to read on a long plane trip. I gave the game a try, and actually had a lot of fun playing it, but completely balked at the idea of ponying up another $45 just to contniue playing. This made no sense to me, I would have paid $15 for another month without a second thought, but $45 just for the "game" which was already installed on my computer seemed ridiculous.

To Fee, or not to Fee

[garylian]

It's kind of a mixed bag, to me.

On the one hand, it is nice not to have to pay a monthly fee. The advantages are obvious. No extra $$$ output from your original purchase price. More players. Less difficult to get your friends to play.

On the other hand, with the monthly fee, you tend to get better service. More bug fixes. More content updates. More money (supposedly) sunk into servers and GM support. Less players that are playing once a week or less.

For the amount of time you usually spend playing a MMO towards "end game" content, is $15 a month really that much? That's most likely cheaper than taking a date to a movie one Friday night a month, and that doesn't include dinner! I can't understand why folks balk at this small amount of money, when they probably spend 20+ hours a week in game. You couldn't even rent movies from Blockbuster and get 20hrs of entertainment in for less than $15 a month. So why bicker over it? If you can't afford it, don't buy the game.

I feel that the no monthly fee model tends to work better with the PvP type enviornments. Much of the content comes from the player's skill, not the world. Content isn't as important, because it doesn't dictate the play style.

The monthly fee gets the non-PvP centric games more content. If PvP isn't the main purpose of the game, then content becomes critical to the success of the game.

The bottom line is, though...if a game sucks, not having a monthly fee isn't going to help it that much. Even games that don't suck, like Guild Wars, doesn't have all of its player base playing once a week or more. I played it for all of 2 months before I was bored out of my skull. Lack of content killed it for me, since I wasn't all that gung-ho on PvP.

Besides, the lack of a monthly fee means that sooner or later, they are going to start in game ads on us. I'd rather pay $15 a month and have no ads, than pay nothing and have ads slowing down my gameplay. And don't think it won't happen.

Contradiction In Terms

[Anonymous Coward]

Free to buy

How does that work?

Albatross18

[Anonymous Coward]

Albatross18 is a great MMOGolfGame with a great business model: Free!

They make thier money by people who choose to buy clubs, balls, caddies, accesories, etc. And with new things being added into the game for paying customers only all the time, I can see how it works. But for me, I just enjoy the great, free game :)

[/pathetic endorsement]

Re:Not jump on the "Guild Wars is freeee" bandwago

[snuf23]

"I think that part of the addiction people have with these games is they feel like they need to be playing every single chance they get in order rationalize the $15 a month."

I don't. I mean if I go to see a movie it costs me $9 for the ticket and if I want a drink and popcorn another $5. That's the equivalent of the monthly fee for an MMO. And all I get is 1.5-3 hours of entertainment - or a waste of time if the movie isn't very good.
So if I spend 6 hours in a month having a good time in an MMO, well then I'm already double the entertainment time from going to the movies.
The pressure in an MMO really has more to do with keeping around the same level as your friends or guildmates. If you log on two weeks later and everyone is 10 levels higher and have already completed all of your quests, you may have a lonely play session.
That's one area I think City of Heroes got right. The ability to "sidekick" a lower level character so that they can fight with a higher level character. They won't have all the abilities they would have at the higher level, but they can be effective as the powers they do have will operate just under the level of the person who is sidekicking them.

maplestory

[Anonymous Coward]

I know im gonna sound like an advertiser but i really enjoy this game called maplestory more than i enjoyed playing WOW.
www.maplestory.com
not only is it a free download and no monthly fee, but thats not the only reason i like it. its all a choice of style. If someone likes playing WOW a lot then they would most likely be glad to pay the subscription. I didnt like the gameplay that much so i looked for alternatives. I think maplestory has a very good idea in that the game is free if you want it to be. The way they make money is by having a cash shop, where you can purchase special items using money. these items can include clothes, pets, items to change the way you talk, etc. But the key is that none of these items give players an advantage, so its not always the richest person wins.

Simple!

[Snaller]

Just get a job as a gold grinder

1. You do the same all the time so its easy to learn

2. It IS your job so the more time you spend on it the better!

Now what to do in your spare time is something else ;)

Re:MMO's the new Bingo? (now with line breaks!)

[Snaller]

Good thing your grandma is into world of warcraft, imagine a vodak crazed dwarf running around causing havoc in Ironforge *g*

Anarchy Online - Free

[Anonymous Coward]

No one has mentioned Anarchy Online yet? Basic game free until Jan 2007.

SOE called it a failure

[SmallFurryCreature]

You can see this espcially with SWG wich they butchered in the hopes of being seen as more WoW.

I don't know about the old everquest but the 2nd version has also been overhauled to make it appeal to a bigger crowd.

Most notable? Increased run speed so your character now looks like a loony toon and no more death penalty.

SOE was one of the big boys in MMO land and then Blizzard came along and showed them how it is done. By the fact that SOE now seems to be in a panic overhauling their games to appeal to a different audience (was any EQ2 player upset by the death penalties?) I judge to be an admission of failure.

Everquest did fine, until WoW showed what was possible. The figures speak for themselves.