Originally posted by Palebane

Something else I just thought of. Plenty of players would go for gameplay>graphics, but doesn't anyone think that graphics are a major form of immersion? I mean, if everyone could afford the greatest  computers to run the greatest graphics, they would. No reason to run lower graphics settings on a computer that can run the good stuff, right? Many players would prefer good graphics if there were no roadblocks because better graphics make for better immersion into whatever games you are playing.

 

Just the other side of the coin, I guess. If everyone could afford the best computers, then there probably wouldn't be as many people worrying about poly counts and shaders, perhaps.

yep if i could buy an alienware computer i would since i cant like almost every gamer

i got to find what game i can use

Originally posted by drbaltazar

Originally posted by nekollx

hell people go trough hell to stick with xp pro lol

it run on almost anything

yep window 7 is coming out

big deal

gamers dont need it ,and if game maker force player to  choose like a lot arebent on doing

only a bunch will win,gw or gw2 ,blizzard and most of the f2p game

theres plenty of proof its like that and have been for years

The only problem is people will haveto get 7 (or 8, 9, w/e) eventually. This obsession with XP will not last. Microsoft already scaled back support for XP, by 2014 they will cut off suport completly. Seriously people are clinging to XP like it's Windows 3.1 and like 3.1 eventually its going to run out of support. Then what are you going to do? Release a mmo that runs on a OS that is no longer being patched for security holes?

 

2014 is in 5 years even aion will almost be dead in 2014 lol

so it's better to run a half dead OS now instead of getting a freshly cleaned one?

As i said XP support was already scaled back. But their going cold turkey in 2014

This is hardly a thunderbolt of clarity, people have been saying that lower system requirements for games is the path to success for a very long time in PC gaming and those people are now starting to enjoy the fruits of their apparently correct theory. (W101, Free realms...)

Not only have far to many MMO devs stuck with the traditional grind / level / raid formula but almost all of them went with the never ending escalating graphic requirements and it's one of the main reasons it killed so many MMO's in the last 4 or 5 years. They ran like SHIT at launch. Lump that with "been there, done that" gameplay and you have a long string of crashed, dead and empty MMO servers.

Originally posted by Dana

F2P MMOs are all the rage, while subscription games appear to have fallen on tough times. Dana thinks he knows why and it has nothing to do with how people pay for them. It's all about accessibility in this week's edition of Dana Massey Asks "Why Not?"

Ask yourself this: What do World of Warcraft and virtually every F2P game have in common? And what do Age of Conan, Warhammer Online and others have in common?

Many people say Funcom and Mythic copied WoW, but if they did, they forgot to rip off the single most important thing. Blizzard even published that top secret design document on bottom of the box.

It was the system requirements.

This is what F2P games and WoW share the most. Forget design, forget art style. They can all be run by a wad of chewing gum and a rubber band.

Read it all here.

Nice to see an article on this topic. I have been pointing this out for years and have had dicussions on several forrums and this basic concept seems to escape so many.

That must be why WoW players smell like cabbage

 Fortunately I upgrade my PC regularly, and keep my hardware current so I can play whatever game I want. It is like having your car serviced regularly, or keeping proper maintenance on your house to make sure they last as long as possible.

It is just a console mentality to buy a pc and expect it to be able to play current games in 5 years time.

Originally posted by RZetlin

Dana and gamers are missing the larger picture why F2P is on the raise.

The economy is in a recession.

The same people that played P2P a few years ago are out of a job now.

Unemployed gamers cannot spend $15/month anymore.

F2P MMORPGs are the most economic way to play games these days.

 

F2P has been doing better than subscription MMOs since 2005. The economy has only been in the toilet for a year.

Originally posted by Soupgoblin

That must be why WoW players smell like cabbage

 

 Fortunately I upgrade my PC regularly, and keep my hardware current so I can play whatever game I want. It is like having your car serviced regularly, or keeping proper maintenance on your house to make sure they last as long as possible.

 

It is just a console mentality to buy a pc and expect it to be able to play current games in 5 years time.

expecting a 2000 investment to play stuff 5 years down the line, yes.

Destroy it? No.

You don't buy a new car every year and replace the engin block (cpu/gpu), drive train (motherboard), or stereo (optical drive) every year, joe average doesn't do the same with his pc.

---

Originally posted by Soupgoblin
That must be why WoW players smell like cabbage
 
 Fortunately I upgrade my PC regularly, and keep my hardware current so I can play whatever game I want. It is like having your car serviced regularly, or keeping proper maintenance on your house to make sure they last as long as possible.
 
It is just a console mentality to buy a pc and expect it to be able to play current games in 5 years time.

---

The average people won't change their computer, because they don't know anything about motherboards, processors or videocards. They buy something and want to use it until it's working.
Gamers are an other category. I want to upgrade for years - but I don't have any money for it, and my salary is way too small for saving up for a new one.

Originally posted by Soupgoblin

That must be why WoW players smell like cabbage

 

 Fortunately I upgrade my PC regularly, and keep my hardware current so I can play whatever game I want. It is like having your car serviced regularly, or keeping proper maintenance on your house to make sure they last as long as possible.

 

It is just a console mentality to buy a pc and expect it to be able to play current games in 5 years time.

That is good for you that you keep your machine upgraded with all the bells and whistles. You are how ever in a minority when it comes to the general population. This is not the 90's anymore, majority of people gaming to day on a PC are doing so on a mediocre machine. It is the archaic metality of the late 90's to push your machine hard thats killing the industry.

Look at the three most successfull P2P MMO's right now. WoW, Eve, LoTRO what sets them appart is scalable graphics engine that will run on a walmart special pc(and still look good) and will look great with all the settings turned up on a hard core gamers machine. What else sets thease same three MMO's appart form the rest? While all the other competition is losing there player base thease guys just keep growing. They completely blow the "games get old and die" theory out of the water. Poorly managed games die after three to four years.

Doh, you left a huge hole in your argument.  The two most popular f2p MMO's Atlantica Online and Runes of Magic both have relatively higher computer requirements than the subscription games.

There goes your theory down the drain, but I will agree high graphics requirements can hurt a game faster than anything.  EQ2 stumbled out of the gate because Wow's computer requirements were far lower than it.  Both AoC and War both have graphics issues and it was a big reason for the less than successful launch of Vanguard

Originally posted by Dana

Originally posted by RZetlin

Dana and gamers are missing the larger picture why F2P is on the raise.

The economy is in a recession.

The same people that played P2P a few years ago are out of a job now.

Unemployed gamers cannot spend $15/month anymore.

F2P MMORPGs are the most economic way to play games these days.

 

 

F2P has been doing better than subscription MMOs since 2005. The economy has only been in the toilet for a year.

Sorry Dana, but that is flat out nonsense, at best f2p have been doing better for the last couple years.  You have a short memory

F2p games are doing better for one simple reason...they are making better quality f2p games than most of the subscription based shit that is offered these days. Take a look at Perfect World..it is insanely fun, looks good on even a e-machine and has an awesome community that is very remincent of FFXI community. I buy a 10.00 card every couple of months and I am swiming in gear and loot....why should I spend 15 a month for broken ugly non fun crap. or even a fun game that openly harbors a cesspool community? Sorry no one but no one gets my money these days unles they work their asses off for it and PW does that.....and  more and more gamers are starting to feel the way I do, that is why F2p games are on the rise.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Doh, you left a huge hole in your argument.  The two most popular f2p MMO's Atlantica Online and Runes of Magic both have relatively higher computer requirements than the subscription games.

There goes your theory down the drain, but I will agree high graphics requirements can hurt a game faster than anything.  EQ2 stumbled out of the gate because Wow's computer requirements were far lower than it.  Both AoC and War both have graphics issues and it was a big reason for the less than successful launch of Vanguard

Runes of Magic - Client
Description:

Download size: 3,4GB

Minimum system requirements
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 512MB
Required Harddisk space: 3.8GB
Graphics card: DirectX 9.0c compatible with 128MB RAM
Broadband Internet connection
Keyboard and Mouse

Atlantica Online

Minimum system requirements
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 1.0 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 512MB
Required Harddisk space: 5GB
Graphics card: DirectX 9.0c compatible with 64MB RAM

I would hardly say that blows my theory out of the water if anything it proves it

Originally posted by todeswulf

F2p games are doing better for one simple reason...they are making better quality f2p games than most of the subscription based shit that is offered these days. Take a look at Perfect World..it is insanely fun, looks good on even a e-machine and has an awesome community that is very remincent of FFXI community. I buy a 10.00 card every couple of months and I am swiming in gear and loot....why should I spend 15 a month for broken ugly non fun crap. or even a fun game that openly harbors a cesspool community? Sorry no one but no one gets my money these days unles they work their asses off for it and PW does that.....and  more and more gamers are starting to feel the way I do, that is why F2p games are on the rise.

i fully support this

when the f2p=p2p

f2p will win my heart every time

like you say mmo f2p improved greatly inthe last decade

so much that if you see a game at ebgame

often your wife will say i saw = quality at mmosite or mmorpg in f2p microtransaction

so you will have a very hard time convincing you better half to let you spend 100 $ on a p2p game  espcially

when she opens the wardrobe and show you all the game you baugh last years that are sleeping in boxes

I think this article is spot on.

Let's be real, most of the people that even log onto forums or websites like this are not the majority of the players.

I play WoW on a PC I bought in 2001, and it was pretty low end then. My son played WoW on a PC only slightly better until I bought him a newer PC for Christmas. Most of the people I've played WoW with from teenagers to grandparents have old PCs. Sure I've ran into a few people in my guild that have decent PCs, but most of the people in the world have old clunkers.

If you want to be a success, it can't just be in Europe or the States. It should be global and accessible to the average person. I think the average age in my guild is about 35, with the youngest being 17 and the oldest being in his early 60s.

When I played DDO or LOTRO, the average age was much younger. Whether thats due to requirements or not, I am not sure.

Blizzard has joked that WoW can be played on a toaster.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Doh, you left a huge hole in your argument.  The two most popular f2p MMO's Atlantica Online and Runes of Magic both have relatively higher computer requirements than the subscription games.

There goes your theory down the drain, but I will agree high graphics requirements can hurt a game faster than anything.  EQ2 stumbled out of the gate because Wow's computer requirements were far lower than it.  Both AoC and War both have graphics issues and it was a big reason for the less than successful launch of Vanguard

EQ2 came on 10 CDs at launch. 10!

Conan requires NASA to operate.

Atlantica and Runes of Magic are not in their league. Also, note other post with actual requirements.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by Dana

Originally posted by RZetlin

Dana and gamers are missing the larger picture why F2P is on the raise.

The economy is in a recession.

The same people that played P2P a few years ago are out of a job now.

Unemployed gamers cannot spend $15/month anymore.

F2P MMORPGs are the most economic way to play games these days.

 

 

F2P has been doing better than subscription MMOs since 2005. The economy has only been in the toilet for a year.

Sorry Dana, but that is flat out nonsense, at best f2p have been doing better for the last couple years.  You have a short memory

 Two years still longer than the economy has been in the toilet.

And again, the last subscription MMO to be truly "successful" was WoW. LotRO, while generally well regarded, didn't get the crazy numbers the IP indicated it would. Whereas quite a few importing companies continue to make sand castles out of money, especially if you take a global perspective.

So, no, not nonsense at all.

Originally posted by Ghostmind

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Originally posted by Dana

F2P MMOs are all the rage, while subscription games appear to have fallen on tough times. Dana thinks he knows why and it has nothing to do with how people pay for them. It's all about accessibility in this week's edition of Dana Massey Asks "Why Not?"

Ask yourself this: What do World of Warcraft and virtually every F2P game have in common? And what do Age of Conan, Warhammer Online and others have in common?

Many people say Funcom and Mythic copied WoW, but if they did, they forgot to rip off the single most important thing. Blizzard even published that top secret design document on bottom of the box.

It was the system requirements.

This is what F2P games and WoW share the most. Forget design, forget art style. They can all be run by a wad of chewing gum and a rubber band.

Read it all here.

 

I can agree here for the most part. as I see it, though, going along with the "copied WoW" line of thinking, graphics is the "easiest" way that they latch onto to differentiate themselves from WoW. Sure, they could lower the polys (and make the game available to more folks) and substitute graphics as their keystone that they can harp on and PR blitz to death as to how they are different with other creative takes on other gameplay systems. But that creative path requires work...and thought. Again, much easier (and less time consuming) to put a nice sweet view on it and draw in the flies. After all, that gets you a box sale and maybe 1-2 months subscription before the flies figure out it's very sour/putrid under that thin layer of visual sweet.

I can mostly agree here...except for a couple things.

Sure, it might be easier to market pretty graphics, but it's also a much heavier load on the development team, both pre-launch and post-launch, because an advanced graphics engine is always something a developer has to wrestle with. More work goes into developing the graphics rather than developing content, because it isn't as simple as designing for something like WoW.

You simply can't have a strong art direction with advanced graphics in an MMO, because, as they say, you can't have your cake and eat it too. This has been said and proven many times over, with World of Warcraft, The Old Republic, Guild Wars, etc. Too much is needed with an advanced engine, and you have to choose between art and content. The downside to that is, in reality you don't really have a choice, because content has to come first.

 

In any case, this is an interesting topic namely because of the swarm of MMOs coming, and most of them can be logically expected to have high system requirements. People have been playing MMOs for years on their old computers, and those very same people are being asked to upgrade by the developers of these new games. Let's see how many actually do, instead of just sticking with that they have.

 

I agree that an advanced graphics engine isn't an "easy" thing to work with. I just think that it has a "manual" or guidebook from which to operate and is very much like the guided content being used in MMOs today. On the other side, coming up with well thought out new takes on other MMO game mechanics/systems and plausibly integrating them so that the crafter and adventurer, the soloer and the raider or the time abundant and the time restricted gamer all feel needed, rewarded...well, that just seems to be something devolpers don't care to think about, much less put into practice. Nah, just put a glossy shine on it, grab your quick cash and start work on the next eye candy making promises that it'll be "different".

Hmm..You are stating the rather obvious in your article, the most talked about subject in years now.. Everyone into MMO's knows about this so you have hardly found something revolotionary in your article. Good reading nevertheless :)

Personally I think it's a sad but true development in the MMORPG scene, how is MMORPG's going to evolve to the latest if developers use graphics that is 5 years old just to be successful.

/junker

oh my gawd.. every week yours articless are worse than one before.. and since one before was already terrible, you get my drift how bad and how much nonsense is in this one..

system requirements? CHRIST  what exactly you been smoking , and in which century are you living ,

do you look at those   3 mln registered at xxx f2p game. and consider thats success? from 3mln, there is 300k active. .from 300k active there are 50k who buys items, from 50k there are 500 who buys items every week.. or even less

its not system requirements, that made what wow is now..

now eq2 didnt had chances not cuz of high spec needed, wow had high specs needed at a time too.. i bought top end ( best you could buy )  like 6-8 months before wow released,it would ran wow on 20-30 fps on med/high , with every patch it would go down, in tbc it was already 15-20 fps.. it would been probably 10 with wotlk

it was wow polish and content , and regular updates, you know few years ago i felt like checking eq2.. then i saw list of all expansions and adventure packs ( before they started selling them together ) there were so many. and all of them had full price..

i launched eq2 trial  week ago, god how terrible it looks.. character models maybe have more details, but everything rest.. felt like playing doom back in 1995..

aoc didnt fail cuz of high requirements.. its still ? second best selling mmo ( atleast were in the start, and seems like its on the rise again now, according to some posts )

do you actually know what kinda pc you need to run wow at max, and 60+ fps while in raids..  yup.. high end CURRENT HIGH END 

aoc with shader model 2 can be run on weaker pc that you need for wow..

wow didnt had its sucess cuz of low requiremnts.. it had due accessibility and polished game, there were so many betas, both closed and open, for wow.. everyone could try, after trying we all wanted to play it.. it was sold in every third world country that didnt knew there are such things as non pirated games..

and constant updates kept ppl playing

poor war performance, while been one of points why war failed, it wasnt main reason, to me main reason was that it had terrible low server caps, and world that felt nothing like world i want to play in... it felt like there are 3 islands..all of them divided into 3 zones.. terrible

why do we have casual propoganda posts in hc gaming forums?  tell me how many casual gamers we have here.. ill tell you very few, tell me how many hc gamers hate casual games and gamers .. 90% 

im not exactly sure why mmorpg.com felt like they needed all those new ppl write collums every week.. there havent been single good one.. whats next week,

PAINTING MMO WHY NOT ?  oh that already was there in a way  OK SINGING MMO , ROCKBAND ONLINE MMORPG go , i bet you would love it..

---

Originally posted by Ozmodan

---

Originally posted by Dana

---

Originally posted by RZetlin

Dana and gamers are missing the larger picture why F2P is on the raise.
The economy is in a recession.
The same people that played P2P a few years ago are out of a job now.
Unemployed gamers cannot spend $15/month anymore.
F2P MMORPGs are the most economic way to play games these days.
 

---

 
F2P has been doing better than subscription MMOs since 2005. The economy has only been in the toilet for a year.

---

Sorry Dana, but that is flat out nonsense, at best f2p have been doing better for the last couple years.  You have a short memory

---

Also, I would like to say that I am not suprised that so many in this topic completely missed the message from the article wtiter. The article simply states that newer MMOs keep chasing after better and better graphics while the player base stays the same.
A good graphics engine and good art director will do so much more for you than cutting edge graphics.

I am however surprised that no one has mentioned Aion. It runs incredibly well on a wide variety of machines and looks great.

Originally posted by fansede

 What is your feelings about technology like OnLive so players do not have to buy a brand new rig to play these AAA games?

The only drawback may be the additional cost of the Onlive service, but perhaps there could be deals made with the companies to help defray the costs of such services..

 

::shrug::

I definately feel cloud computing is the way to go for MMORPGS, think about it, you could have crysis level of graphics with like 200v200 people on screen with 60 fps. And you could even play it on a shitty computer from the 90s.

The only thing holding it back is the shitty internet infrastructure in the US, bring it to us Swedes with our 100Mbit/s connection and we'll put it to good use :D

 I agree with this article, and have a couple of comments:

People underestimate how much low system requirements counts. A lot of your potential audience is in that 13-23 bracket-- kids who depend on their parents to buy them hardware and young people in college or just getting started who don't have a lot of extra cash lying around. Then there are people (even older ones, like me) who don't feel like playing games is a good enough reason to buy new hardware when the old machine is still chugging along. I know at least one person who plays MapleStory because she's an insomniac and wanted something she could play on her netbook in bed when she wasn't sleeping. 

WoW runs like a dream on the computer I bought in 2001 (and even more so since I made a few minor upgrades). That counts for something with me.

Also, it seems that a lot of p2p companies make it a pain in the butt to download their client. Some put it right out in front where it is easy to get to, but others seem to deliberately hide it. Some won't let you download until you pay. (For instance, if you want to d/l an SOE game with Station Launcher...)  I'll buy your game. I'll pay your subscription fee. Just make it easy for me to get the client! Most f2p games have giant "DOWNLOAD NOW"  buttons right on their home page. 

Originally posted by Dana

Originally posted by Khaunshar

I am sorry, but I think this one is making it too easy.

GTA: San Andreas had no low reqs. GTA 4 has pretty high specs.

 Sims 3 is quite hardware hungry, Spore is despite its looks not that happy with a low-end machine either. CoD4 sold like hot buns, yet wants quite a machine. Oblivion, The Witcher, Fallout 3...... there is a huuuuge number of gamers and interested people who do have good machines.

There is accessability, and there is laziness. The latter one is the problem. Age of Conan and especially Warhammer ran like crap because their engines are not well-coded. They are not well-made, and are not suited to the demands of an MMORPG. Look at Aion: It runs BETTER than WoW once about 20 people are on screen, and looks infinitely better. Look at Guild Wars, a game that can handle basically anything without dying.

WoW isnt even particularly well-coded. As soon as you got more than about 20 to 30 characters on screen, anything even remotely near the minimum reqs just dies. I had guildmates who met the recommended reqs, and couldnt enter Dalaran during Primetime, and we had to move their characters on our machines to Naxxramas.

The relatively lower system specs may well have helped WoW at its launch, but today, anything but empty zones full of solo quests requires much more power than can be justified with the bad graphics and tech.

What matters is using an engine, using tech that is suited to the demands of a MMORPG. You dont have to have it run on a calculator to be successful, there are millions of players out there whose rigs are not hamster-wheel-powered with wooden dial-up and a broken bathroom mirror as screen. What you need is to do what Guild Wars did, what Aion did, create a game engine that isnt a rip-off of a singleplayer shooter, but that works for 60 people on screen.

And that means scrap the 20 shaders, real-time physics and 30-layer-textures, leave those to the powerhouses that can make them manageable like a good Shooter. Hire the best of the best texture artists, use a decent netcode, polish the hell out of your code, and your game will both look excellent, and run well. Maybe it could be prettier, yeah. But crappy graphics with the excuse of accessability is not the way to go.

Today is not 5 years ago.

Exactly, well said and direct. It all comes down to how well the game is developed. People like Massey killing this industry for sayign things like this post and not knowing shit.

Yes! there are players with bad computers.

Yes! there are players with awsome ones.

As time passes by people demand more! more graphics more items more FUN! It is not easy making a verry complex mmo and just cuz its complex does not mean it will be a hit. Its a work in progress i know more than as you say "12" people who have good computers and will laugh at you if you think they will go play somethign as cheap as 12 sky...Right....

KNOW YOUR PLACE MASSEY, SIT DOWN AND BE A GOOD CUAYET BOY!

Originally posted by frajhav

Originally posted by Dana

Originally posted by Khaunshar

I am sorry, but I think this one is making it too easy.

GTA: San Andreas had no low reqs. GTA 4 has pretty high specs.

 Sims 3 is quite hardware hungry, Spore is despite its looks not that happy with a low-end machine either. CoD4 sold like hot buns, yet wants quite a machine. Oblivion, The Witcher, Fallout 3...... there is a huuuuge number of gamers and interested people who do have good machines.

There is accessability, and there is laziness. The latter one is the problem. Age of Conan and especially Warhammer ran like crap because their engines are not well-coded. They are not well-made, and are not suited to the demands of an MMORPG. Look at Aion: It runs BETTER than WoW once about 20 people are on screen, and looks infinitely better. Look at Guild Wars, a game that can handle basically anything without dying.

WoW isnt even particularly well-coded. As soon as you got more than about 20 to 30 characters on screen, anything even remotely near the minimum reqs just dies. I had guildmates who met the recommended reqs, and couldnt enter Dalaran during Primetime, and we had to move their characters on our machines to Naxxramas.

The relatively lower system specs may well have helped WoW at its launch, but today, anything but empty zones full of solo quests requires much more power than can be justified with the bad graphics and tech.

What matters is using an engine, using tech that is suited to the demands of a MMORPG. You dont have to have it run on a calculator to be successful, there are millions of players out there whose rigs are not hamster-wheel-powered with wooden dial-up and a broken bathroom mirror as screen. What you need is to do what Guild Wars did, what Aion did, create a game engine that isnt a rip-off of a singleplayer shooter, but that works for 60 people on screen.

And that means scrap the 20 shaders, real-time physics and 30-layer-textures, leave those to the powerhouses that can make them manageable like a good Shooter. Hire the best of the best texture artists, use a decent netcode, polish the hell out of your code, and your game will both look excellent, and run well. Maybe it could be prettier, yeah. But crappy graphics with the excuse of accessability is not the way to go.

Today is not 5 years ago.

Exactly, well said and direct. It all comes down to how well the game is developed. People like Massey killing this industry for sayign things like this post and not knowing shit.

Yes! there are players with bad computers.

Yes! there are players with awsome ones.

As time passes by people demand more! more graphics more items more FUN! It is not easy making a verry complex mmo and just cuz its complex does not mean it will be a hit. Its a work in progress i know more than as you say "12" people who have good computers and will laugh at you if you think they will go play somethign as cheap as 12 sky...Right....

KNOW YOUR PLACE MASSEY, SIT DOWN AND BE A GOOD CUAYET BOY!

lol if  you did research a bit more you would find that the chance of meeting someone with a brand new computer are very slim and the older comp range get the more people you ll meet to  i ll guess here about  5 or 6 years then after that it diminish fast
 

but from say aa 6 years old to 3 years old computer its a bigger market the 3 years old comp to 3 months old comps

lets forget all the bable

enter www.xfire.com

click on the stream feed then choose mmo from the top games are old its not just luck

lol people choose to play those

why dont they play lotr its cheapper then wow

only one reason possible system req

some people can barelly play wow on their computer

Originally posted by neschria

 I agree with this article, and have a couple of comments:

People underestimate how much low system requirements counts. A lot of your potential audience is in that 13-23 bracket-- kids who depend on their parents to buy them hardware and young people in college or just getting started who don't have a lot of extra cash lying around. Then there are people (even older ones, like me) who don't feel like playing games is a good enough reason to buy new hardware when the old machine is still chugging along. I know at least one person who plays MapleStory because she's an insomniac and wanted something she could play on her netbook in bed when she wasn't sleeping. 

WoW runs like a dream on the computer I bought in 2001 (and even more so since I made a few minor upgrades). That counts for something with me.

Also, it seems that a lot of p2p companies make it a pain in the butt to download their client. Some put it right out in front where it is easy to get to, but others seem to deliberately hide it. Some won't let you download until you pay. (For instance, if you want to d/l an SOE game with Station Launcher...)  I'll buy your game. I'll pay your subscription fee. Just make it easy for me to get the client! Most f2p games have giant "DOWNLOAD NOW"  buttons right on their home page. 

 

Well yeah, since F2P requires people to get the client easy. I have no issues about SoE "hiding" their client, or any other developer for that matter.

Regarding System specs - I do not personally believe it to be an issue. Recession or not. World of Warcraft has introduced alot of people to MMOGs, and some of them are running it off Toasters. But newer computers will have DX10 support (Unless it's the cheapest laptop around) out of the box so I would not consider it an issue to code with that in mind. I haven't upgraded my machine in years since there's no reason to!

Where I personally think "newly" released MMOG's fail has been content, or lack thereoff. Sadly I personally believe WoW has ruined the genre some, and people expect newly released MMOGs to have tons of content, something that is unrealistic given the products development phase and the heavy breathing from the board of directors as the product nears Gold status. Vanguard and Age of Conan springs to mind regarding this since they were both games that showed alot of potential, but failed to provide it in a timely manner.