Originally posted by Kuppa

Originally posted by TalulaRose

Originally posted by Kuppa

Originally posted by TalulaRose

The market is saturated with players who do not want to pay for quality. They are happy to accept a lesser quality game and when that one has run its course they bounce to the next one.

The worst thing to happen to MMORPGs was for them to go mainstream.

I can't disagree more, thats the problem with the genre. The zealous fans that only want the genre to stay super small and not progress foward. Yes, there are bad things that come from opening up to a wider audience but also a lot of good comes from it. The industry will not grow if it stays stagnet.

I have yet to see anything that the F2P and B2P games have done to progress.

Its more than the business model. Its the ideas to expand the genre.

Sorry but the people with ideas want to get paid. They aren't going to spend time to work on their craft with no return. I like your thoughts but right now the investment to bring those ideas to the general public cost money.  I don't expect  any of the F2P or B2P games to really take off. If they were that good one of them would have already dethroned the all mighty sub based titan known as WoW.

Even Eve has a sub and many consider that to be one of the more successful games done by a small company.

Creating MMOs take allot of people to do. Its not like painting, sculpting, writing music that can all be done by one person. And even then once they create the idea it takes the big company with the $$ to bring it to the masses. Just look at why many artists are on board with putting an end to pirated copies of their idea. Without the money to live they cannot continue working on those ideas.

Originally posted by TalulaRose

Originally posted by Kuppa

Originally posted by TalulaRose

Originally posted by Kuppa

Originally posted by TalulaRose

The market is saturated with players who do not want to pay for quality. They are happy to accept a lesser quality game and when that one has run its course they bounce to the next one.

The worst thing to happen to MMORPGs was for them to go mainstream.

I can't disagree more, thats the problem with the genre. The zealous fans that only want the genre to stay super small and not progress foward. Yes, there are bad things that come from opening up to a wider audience but also a lot of good comes from it. The industry will not grow if it stays stagnet.

I have yet to see anything that the F2P and B2P games have done to progress.

Its more than the business model. Its the ideas to expand the genre.

Sorry but the people with ideas want to get paid. They aren't going to spend time to work on their craft with no return. I like your thoughts but right now the investment to bring those ideas to the general public cost money.  I don't expect  any of the F2P or B2P games to really take off. If they were that good one of them would have already dethroned the all mighty sub based titan known as WoW.

Even Eve has a sub and many consider that to be one of the more successful games done by a small company.

Creating MMOs take allot of people to do. Its not like painting, sculpting, writing music that can all be done by one person. And even then once they create the idea it takes the big company with the $$ to bring it to the masses. Just look at why many artists are on board with putting an end to pirated copies of their idea. Without the money to live they cannot continue working on those ideas.

F2P and B2P have already taken off. Just in other genres more so than in MMOs. There are many mmos that would have died if it weren't for their f2p conversion. What we need is for mmos to come out with these models since release though, like PS2, Neverwinter and GW2.

BTW, I do believe there is still space for subs. But it would need to be an extraordinary mmo these days to justify a price tag.

Originally posted by Johnie-Marz

Originally posted by erictlewis
I got a bad fealing that tsw is going to get the axe if this keeps up. I can go hours of gameplay and never see another individual until i  head to the loby area of either london or argatha.

Many times after layoffs come server merges. 

not much to merge here, thers only 1 server (hardware)

I love the game, hope it doesn´t get hurt by these lay offs.

Still many things to improve in PVP.

Yes, the monthly sub it´s costly, it should be lower, and the discount in longer subscription periods should be bigger.

But i will continue to sub, because it has unique features, love the pve, the combat system is way better than most mmorpg (at least i can move, dodge, and still able to fire, cast). And the wheel is a great idea, just love the system, and we have to think to do the quest, choose the decks, the abilities and so on. It´s a game that makes me think and not just go from hub to hub doing quest that have no meaning to the story.

Originally posted by Yuui

In before doomsayers and usual pointless mess of people speculating about things they have no idea about.

 

 

Anyway, as long as Ragnar remains, there won't be any no big problems with game's direction and game won't be affected that much. 

Yeah... because when a developer lays off 50% of it's staff, everything's peachy keen.    

TSW didn't make nearly as many sales as they hoped... and now it's got 50% less manpower behind it, pushing forward.   Yeah, it's gonna be fine..   

/sarcasm

Originally posted by gimmesome

Originally posted by Yuui

In before doomsayers and usual pointless mess of people speculating about things they have no idea about.

 

 

Anyway, as long as Ragnar remains, there won't be any no big problems with game's direction and game won't be affected that much. 

Yeah... because when a developer lays off 50% of it's staff, everything's peachy keen.    

TSW didn't make nearly as many sales as they hoped... and now it's got 50% less manpower behind it, pushing forward.   Yeah, it's gonna be fine..   

 

/sarcasm

SOE has reduced their entire staff by 50% two times, closing down several of their studios over the past years.... reducing their original staff by a whopping total of 75% !

And except for SWG, all of SOE's own developed games are still up and running.

Originally posted by TalulaRose

The market is saturated with players who do not want to pay for quality. They are happy to accept a lesser quality game and when that one has run its course they bounce to the next one.

The worst thing to happen to MMORPGs was for them to go mainstream.

8 tiny instanced areas with a lobby and instanced dungeons are not quality and definitely don't make an "MMO."

Originally posted by shinkan
What funcom should do is continue to cater for its current audience, and build its niche slowly. Do something similar to Eve Online, if you can make your current audience happy you will slowly attract new players.

I definitely agree with this.  Obviously sales projections were wildly optimistic - that's Funcom's problem.  However, Ragnar is still committed to monthly updates to slowly expand the range and reach of TSW.  There are plenty of very enthusiastic players in this game right now - and Funcom's best bet is to continue investments to TSW to address the concerns of current players and offer incentives to potential players.  Naturally this is going to take time.

Martin Bruusgaard's ouster was bad news - I'm sorry to see it happen.

Originally posted by Phry

newer games certainly don't appear to be worth the subs these days, while older games that have perhaps stood the test of time.. and perhaps player patience, clearly do.. not so sure how thats going to go with WoW after MoP... as i have a few misgivings about it personally.. but i know for one thing that Eve is definitely more than worth its sub.  Cant think of any others offhand at the moment that i'd consider even playing long term let alone paying for the dubious priviledge of. Sign of the times perhaps. though its probably just me getting older

To an extent, it's one of the reasons I asked him about it.  Whether it was a subjective dislike of the current games, whether something else had changed, etc, etc, etc.

The games I would not play, I would not play them whether they had a sub or not.  For the games that I enjoy, I would rather pay a sub for them and there are several games that I would likely include in annual rotation.

While a game today may not give me UO - I'd be lying to say that games today do not offer just as much in their own way than what UO offered back in the past...many of them offer far more.  It may not be my thing, but there's no denying it.

Originally posted by Loke666

I can kinda see his point as well. When I started with Meridian 59 in 1996 bandwidth was a huge cost and there were no alternatives. Sure, 15 bucks today is less than the 10 (I think it was 10, it was a really long time ago) in 1996 but TSW do have a cashshop

I decided when cashshops became common to never start with a game that have both cashshop and monthly fees, that is robbery. That was the reason I didnt buy the game at launch, I have no problem with paying 15 bucks a month all inclusive or even 20 but my principles forbid me to buy the game right now just as it did with Diablo 3.

To be honest didnt I quit EQ2 when they added the cashshop, I just whined and I did look really hard on TSW when it launched, I like the world.

But box cost + montly fees + itemshop = expensive in my book and I support P2P.

Well yeah, in that regard - but I was only looking at Box + Sub.  When cash shops are added to that, well - the subject definitely gets a bit mired.  Personally, vanity items have never really bothered me - but that's with just pure vanity items.  When it goes beyond that, it changes whether or not the game's worth the sub - the Freemium games - well, I wouldn't consider them worth a sub.

Originally posted by kanezfan

 

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Originally posted by VirusDancer

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Originally posted by Z3R01 I would have purchased this day one if it was Buy to play. The games not worth a subscription.  Honestly I don't think any game on the market is worth a subscription...

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Do games offer as much if not more than they did back in 1997?  Keeping in mind that while it may be a case of not necessarily liking what they offer...do they offer as much if not more?  Did you not pay subs back in 1997?  If the answer to both of those is yes, how could you say that no game on the market is worth a sub?

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I hate when people make this argument. It doesn't matter what was happening in 1997, TSW is NOT competing with games from 1997. It's competing with games in 2012 and when you take a look at what's out there, no it's not worth a sub fee.

It doesn't matter to you, and I can respect that.  Different people will have different things that matter.  I can go get a $1 burger from a fast food joint or I can spend $10+ to get one from a restaurant.  To some, they will see those as competing - to me, that's not the case in the least.  So in this regard, I'm going to compare whehter the expensive burger today is still worth being expensive in comparison to the cheaper burger.  If the quality of it has dropped, if there's not as much of a difference between the two, etc, etc, etc.

Originally posted by Z3R01

Originally posted by VirusDancer

Originally posted by Z3R01

I would have purchased this day one if it was Buy to play.

The games not worth a subscription. 

Honestly I don't think any game on the market is worth a subscription...

Do games offer as much if not more than they did back in 1997?  Keeping in mind that while it may be a case of not necessarily liking what they offer...do they offer as much if not more?  Did you not pay subs back in 1997?  If the answer to both of those is yes, how could you say that no game on the market is worth a sub?

Those games, UO, EQ, DAoC, SWG, EVE and even WoW that were good enough have been changed so drastically that they are no longer the same experiences... so no they are not worth the subscription price.

In this day and age with the way the economy is and how much competition the market has to ask for 180+ dollars for one game yearly is assaine. 

I don't think any game will ever be worth a subscription fee again.

The sub fee's increased by about 50% in 15 years. A movie ticket's increased by about 260% in the same time period. Look at the prices of books, music, movies, comics, etc, etc, etc.

I can see it's going to be a case of disagreeing on the value of something and whether something should be paid for; so there's really no point in continuing that discussion - those never go anywhere, heh...neither of us is wrong, we're entitled to our opinions.

I was just curious about your reasoning behind that.  Thanks for answering.

Sad news. This is not looking good.

Though the animations and combat in TSW really really disappointed me, the game is at least something different, the writing has its moments, and the atmosphere is probably the best there is in any MMO. 

All in all, some creative stuff as far as the mostly-uninspired-genre called MMORPG goes.

So maybe I should resub... Gotta support such stuff, after all. Who knows, maybe I could convince a few friends while I'm at it.

well some reminders to all the ppl who declare funcom as a failure company :

The longest journey  series ...the best ever made adventure game 

Anarchy Online  huge fun  MMO

Age of Conan today  seems to be quite stable

TSW has rare negative responses and seems to be a great mmo

Soo Funcom  got all the bad reputation from 1 single release with AOC?

God bless all companies in the future , one mistake and youre done

Originally posted by Pumuckl71

Soo Funcom  got all the bad reputation from 1 single release with AOC?

God bless all companies in the future , one mistake and youre done

 

Heh, it started with the AO release.  Repeated with the AoC release.  So it's not surprising when Funcom releases a game for folks to think about waiting to play.  Not that they won't play, but just that they should wait to play...

...unfortunately with that, the timing set them up to deal with the GW2, WoW, RIFT, et al crowds.

Originally posted by VirusDancer

Originally posted by Z3R01

I would have purchased this day one if it was Buy to play.

The games not worth a subscription. 

Honestly I don't think any game on the market is worth a subscription...

Do games offer as much if not more than they did back in 1997?  Keeping in mind that while it may be a case of not necessarily liking what they offer...do they offer as much if not more?  Did you not pay subs back in 1997?  If the answer to both of those is yes, how could you say that no game on the market is worth a sub?

You know this depends on personal opinion.

I would say there isn't a current A-Tittle MMORPG that comes close to the content and feature's Star Wars Galaxies offered. While I am sure some will say that SWG had everything but content, because a fairly comment back in the day was that the game didn't offer enough content, though what we didn't know at the time is that plenty of people seem to want ot be guided and due to experiance I have noticed that games that do not guid you most of the time will be complained about lack of content, while a sandbox type of gamer will understand the content and knows how to use it.

Today's MMORPG offere so much less. The only difference is better graphics but allot lot less content but allot more guidens.

Oh and there is nothing wrong that many people like to be guided thru out their game, but it's a shame they often don't understand it when someone speaks about the old being far more filled with content.

As for the temp. layoffs/ closing etc, it's expected, especially in these economic unstable times in all industry's.