The sub itself isin't really a problem and in scale of month 5$ makes next to no difference really (if it does, you have bigger issues than paying for MMOs). The question always is "What do I get for the subscription fee" and "How much of content/service is not covered by it". 

To be perfectly honest, I'd prefer the sub fee to be higher in some cases (up to 20$) if it meant that -everything- will be included in that price. That is no additional fee for server transfers, name changes, race changes (of course all with some time restriction so it's not abused) and no vanity mounts/pets/clothes for 10-20$ each.

Nowadays, however, sadly most companies not only do not lower the subscription fee nor initial box price but also expect players to pay for more and more stuff on top of that. That's not really a business practice I'm willing to support. If a company asks me for box + sub + expac money I want to have acess to every item/service in game with no additional costs. 

UO was $9.95 a month at release and EQ was $9.89 a month at release. Blame Mythic for raising the prices and starting the trend towards the current $14.99 a month

Ironically though if you consider the overall price compared to other things its really not that bad....

Originally posted by dave6660

If inflation is rising and more and more money is put into the development of a game, how do you expect to lower the price of the sub fee?  Something has to give.

 

Let the whales pay through their nose and the rest of us enjoy the games for free?

No. MMO's can work without sub fees, once that finally came out, there is no justification for any sub fee. Would you start paying your car's producent 50$ a month starting from now, for no extra service? Just 50$ on top, for no reason, jsut to pay it? Thats what a MMO sub fee is. People should really understand that, the sooner this happens, the sooner all will benefit. As long as people pay, studios will try to rip them off. In other words, if you pay a sub, you are indirectly hurting everyone else, espeically those who can't afford it. Unless the game is FTP and the sub is optional, then you are helping, of course.

Sub fees lead directly to lazy devs, grind based content, and dumbing down of the gameplay. If that's what you want, pay up.

Darkfall is now 9.99. . . I don't think that will lead to more subs. . . 10 is not better than 15 if you don't want to play it.  $5 a month difference is only a psychologial difference for most people.

Spending 9 dollars a month on a game I don't play because it doesn't grab me is still a waste. Spening 15 for a game that grabs me is no problem at all.

Originally posted by gladosrev2

No. MMO's can work without sub fees, once that finally came out, there is no justification for any sub fee. Would you start paying your car's producent 50$ a month starting from now, for no extra service? Just 50$ on top, for no reason, jsut to pay it? Thats what a MMO sub fee is. People should really understand that, the sooner this happens, the sooner all will benefit. As long as people pay, studios will try to rip them off. In other words, if you pay a sub, you are indirectly hurting everyone else, espeically those who can't afford it. Unless the game is FTP and the sub is optional, then you are helping, of course.

Sub fees lead directly to lazy devs, grind based content, and dumbing down of the gameplay. If that's what you want, pay up.

I wish people would stop comparing games to cars... They have nothing in common really. Since everyone loves those, however, I'll go with it. You do pay for gas and oil for your car, you do pay for service checks, you do pay for repairs, washing cars ain't free either (even you do it yourself there are costs) and plenty of other lesser or bigger costs that are tied to car depending on how you use it/where you live. Oh. Your car, also, is not updated with new features unless you buy for them and then for installing them. For each of those you not only pay price for raw materials but also for work required and a profit margin...

Servers costs money, customer support costs money, content developement costs money and of course companies want to profit as well in the long term, since making MMO takes a lot more resources and time than singleplayer game. 

Five to seven dollars a month doesn't make a difference. If it does to you, then perhaps you should find another hobby.

When you have had a car for a few years, it gets worn out, you wouldn't sell it for the price you got it new, no matter how well cleaned or 'suped up' you made it. So if a game gets old, treat it like a second hand car....cheaper!

Originally posted by Corehaven

Originally posted by nomss

Nope, should be B2P.

Agreed.  Its not worth 50 cents a month in my opinion.  But I'd pay money for the purchase.  Just not a monthly.  Im done with that mess. 

agreed ,sub its not even worth, it like getting yourself being robbed in mi opinion.

if i buy the game why the hell iwant to pay to play it and have fun? its just stupid.

If an MMO grabed me as much as WoW and SWG did, I personally have no problem paying $30 a month.   Also in all honest it would probably save me money, as when I was playing SWG and WoW I only bought a select few other games, where as now I buy alot of games hoping they will last more then 10 hours(most don't).

More of them need to go to $5 a month vs FTP.

Originally posted by Atheenah

Originally posted by StoneRoses

Originally posted by TheCrow2k

SWTOR is not an MMO, its a single player game with limited co-op and pvp. Therefore it should not have any subscription at all. Buy to play might be their best bet going forward instead of F2P but I think they already alienated too many players and most would not come back for free anyway.

Limited Co-op?

 WTF you talking about! Flashpoints, Hardmodes, Worlds bosses, Operations. You are encourage to group during missions for better rewards.

 

Even before 1.3 you can do premade PvP, it was annoying but you can still make it work.

 

You guys are still making the same excuse!

 

This is all OPTIONAL!

 

The players make it a single player game!  It's no ones fault but yours for not wanting to participate.

 

Not sorry if you are getting beat by the "Antisocial Boss," for failing to communicate with others.

 

 

 

 

 

I DO NOT consider this an MMO. I, too, redgard it as a single player with co-op options.

MMO´s are so much more, especially social and similar perspectives.

How do you even roleplay in this so called MMO? Everyone looks the same with their same companions, LOL!

/sigh

/facepalm

/points  -----Click---->             MMO

Originally posted by Esquire1980

 

I looked at your signature and found we have played alot of the same past games.  All the same for me, except War, and then you proudly state your favorite is TOR and least favorite is NGE.  To be honest, and full well knowing that likeing something is purely an opinion held via an individual, I have no idea how you can say NGE was so bad and TOR is so great.

I played SWG in pre-CU, CU, NGE, and post NGE (after C6CD) and TOR seems to me to be the "perfect NGE", made by some of the exact same developers, in fact.  The game is totaly linear in nature and "WoWified" to beat the band.  You can't even skip dailys or skip a HM flashpoint.  You almost MUST go down the path they have laid out to even play this game due to difficulty and/or gearing at end game.  There is NO appearance customization, that was found in SWG, even back in the original NGE while we were all wearing "droped" clothing for the stats, much less with adept-strain's appearance tab.  There is no exploration of just about any sort due to the "paths" created to lead you from quest giver to questing NPCs, all quartered off via cliffs and/or invisible walls.  (this was a large complaint about the wookiee world expansion as well as Musti back in SWG).

Everything is nothing but combat or clicking on 5 things.  There are no quests that doesn't include this in some manner, shape, or form.  (pretty same exact thing as in WOW, but the worlds there are at least large enough to get off the beaten path sometimes).  The UI, the shear amount of specials, the "rested" XP, the talent system, the quest until end game and then gear grind, even the augments are nothing more than WoW glyths and jewels, the no housing (or really any other area to call your own is another complete rip off of WoW - and please don't say "ships" that you can do nothing with other than just being another loading screen you have to go thru to travel).  I even got most of the legacy perks of 1.2 and you can't even have a choice in where to place the droid, the mailbox, bank, etc.  They go where they put them and that's it.  The ship for my Guard and the ship for my sage was EXACTLY the same.  None of my houses in SWG were the same, even if 2 toons had a bunker, they were very different in appearance and functionality due to just being able to drop something anywhere.  Even in STO, I bought the TOS interiors to be a little different than EVERY other ship interior that everyone else had.

Character creation.  Basicly WoW again, enough said.  Cryptic did a better job of toon creation and they have some cut-scenes, etc to pre-program the variations in as well.

And finaly crafting?  How in the world do you get ANY enjoyment in the TOR crafting system?  It's basicly useless at endgame except for the band-aids they're trying to stick on now (with augments).  At least in WoW, there are some items that are a little better than drops for the gear grinds to have at least some player made economy.  For the life of me, I simply can not understand why any1 would tout TOR's crafting system as anymore more than a useless credit sink.  Everything that could be crafted, you can pretty much get better by just looking for drops or buying off of game stationed NPCs.

TOR seems like the "perfect NGE" to me.  What these former SOE devs really wanted to do all along to SWG when they CHANGED it.  They just couldn't quite get ALL the "Koster goodness" out of it (like Rubenfield said in his blog) but they were able to get every drop of the "goodness" out of TOR.  To be perfectly honest, I much rather play NGE, ANYDAY. 

Please enlighten me, as a former player of almost the same games.

Yes you're right! It lacks DEPTH compared to other MMOs.

But guess what? It's still an MMO!

I will pay what a game is worth.  If the game is worth $14.99, I will pay that.  If the game is not worth $14.99, I won't.  If it reduces the cost to $11.99, I'll re-evaluate it and decide if it's worth that price.

The problem is, most games aren't worth a red cent.

[Mistake, please delete]

Purchased GW2, happy for it. Finally, able to leave the annoying subs behind and contribute in ways that actually give me fun things instead of a forced monthly sucking of the wallet.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by dave6660

If inflation is rising and more and more money is put into the development of a game, how do you expect to lower the price of the sub fee?  Something has to give.

 

 

Let the whales pay through their nose and the rest of us enjoy the games for free?

No thank you.  I don't want or need other people to subsidize my entertainment just as I don't want my money subsidizing other peoples entertainment.

It's not the amount I pay, but it's that I get what I pay for. If I pay $15/month, I expect essentially an expansion of some kind to the game once every 3-4 months with bug/balancing fixes going daily. If I pay $5/month, I expect pretty much nothing past what I see currently in the game and that about once a year a major expansion to the game. If I pay nothing for the game, I expect to get an experiment or taste of a game without any extra balancing or bug fixing.

Why the hell is everyone talking about SWTOR? If you read the OP he/she is talking about IN GENERAL.

With that annoyance out of the way, I personally think the $15 standard is what is killing many games. I've been playing Wakfu for about a week now, and it's $6 per month. That is a fantastic price. I personally think $5-$8 should be standard.