General Discussion

What is encouraging, is that people are starting to not pay for non-quality.

NGE-SWG, Vanguard, Pirates of the BS, all of these non-successes are starting to suggest that players will not pay for crap (or no longer pay for crap), or not pay for crap very long...

This is the market at work....

Originally posted by Burntvet

What is encouraging, is that people are starting to not pay for non-quality.

NGE-SWG, Vanguard, Pirates of the BS, all of these non-successes are starting to suggest that players will not pay for crap (or no longer pay for crap), or not pay for crap very long...

This is the market at work....

Hmm, I see your point OP.  But the fact is that "kids" are a good percentage of the community in  MMOs.  If one were to risk putting it up to $25 dollars a month (which is a little extreme), than the developers better have a damned good game.  Mature community or not, the game has to be extremely good to raise the bar at 25 dollars.  Also, when some people see the fact that the game is 25 dollars, it will just turn them off, since that is a large price for an MMO.  I see where you are getting at, but is it really worth the risk for a developer to do that?

Also, you seem to be generalizing kids as one group: immature ass-holes.  Sure, some kids are like that, but others are also muture.  It is never right to say that everyone of one group acts like this.  It's just not fair to some kids who are not immature ass-holes to be grouped like that just because of their age.

Originally posted by mike470

Hmm, I see your point OP.  But the fact is that "kids" are a good percentage of the community in  MMOs.  If one were to risk putting it up to $25 dollars a month (which is a little extreme), than the developers better have a damned good game.  Mature community or not, the game has to be extremely good to raise the bar at 25 dollars.  Also, when some people see the fact that the game is 25 dollars, it will just turn them off, since that is a large price for an MMO.  I see where you are getting at, but is it really worth the risk for a developer to do that?

Also, you seem to be generalizing kids as one group: immature ass-holes.  Sure, some kids are like that, but others are also muture.  It is never right to say that everyone of one group acts like this.  It's just not fair to some kids who are not immature ass-holes to be grouped like that just because of their age.

 

Anyway... My associate and I from The Guild were discussing these issues and I thought that maybe it would be appropriate for mmorpgs to take a little lesson from theme parks. In a theme park, the best rides are usually build for people who are more mature. (Please note I'm not referring directly to age.) As is, mmorpgs generally have quite a few servers, and often they are split up between pve, pvp, rp, and various combinations of these. Why shouldn't a developer take these servers to the next level and separate players by maturity and by the players' desired quality of play and rank these servers setting conditions and raising prices for the higher ranked servers which will provide the most dynamic, challenging and interesting experiences.

What I mean is, let's say you have two servers. Power gamers want to play right away with minimal effort, so they can play on the cheaper, more populated server that costs them less money. Sure, I don't care, they can have fun with that. Now, players who are looking for a game that challenges them on a more dynamic and intellectual level that provides them with more interesting activities can apply to join the advanced server. Like the biggest roller coaster in the theme park, they have to be "this tall" to ride. By screening it's members, this server can ensure that players who are willing to pay more are getting their money's worth.

(Also, please note that as I write this, I'm not referring directly to the given example of a $25 price tag. This is a separate, though related, example, so think about it before you feel ripped off and tell me I'm supporting greedy developers.)

I wouldn't care aboutp aying $25 a month

Originally posted by Lodeclaw

Alright. So I'm a role-player and in an MMORPG I crave social interaction on a personal level; that is, something more than "Level? Class? Wanna party? Y/N" Immersion, please.

On average, a pay to play MMORPG will cost you around US$15 per month and you get usually pretty shitty communities. So I was wondering, if you were given the opportunity to get into a pay to play MMORPG that promised to take care of it's in-game community and support quality experiences within the game world for a larger monthy fee, would you do it? For the sake of argument, let's say that the cost is US$25 per month instead of US$15 per month and to be fair, let's assume that the base cost to buy the game retail is minimal or free for download.

Would you pay $10 more for superior quality so that a developer could better take care of it's players and be able to sustain itself off of fewer subscriptions than a killer app like WoW?

Opinions are very welcome.

 

This thread comes to you on behalf of The Guild: Clan and Community.
(www.theguild.darkbb.com)

Any additional opinions on this?

This thread is kind of useless. Valid question - no useful answers. It's all a matter of opinion on what Quality is.

My humble opinion that nobody cares about: There are pleanty of MMO's out there that can offer you a quality gameplay experience, if you like those types of MMO's. Most MMO's are of the Theme park type as of late. A World set up for you to use but a world that you can not change. You just enjoy the 'rides' and 'attractions' set for you by the devs rather than being able to make your own. To me, they are worth a spin, but theres very limited replayability.

As for the money issue - No. $15/month is the most a developer SHOULD charge for an MMO. There is no reason they should charge more. Every developer will claim their MMO is of higher quality than the next due to this reason or that. But that does not mean they should raise the price any higher. Developers should just make quality gaming by default, and let the gamers decide. But to charge an extra $10 monthly because they feel their content is of higher quality is just ludicrous. IMHO - no MMO to date has been worth more than $15/month and I will never pay more. How much is an MMO really worth to you?

Hell yes I would, tired of all these horrible MMOs.There are so many of them, and they all suck.Each and every single one.

I'd pay less for lower quality, but as far as I am concerned I am already paying more for higher quality.