Just want to inform you - The monthly fee is currently 17,99 € which are 23,57 $.

Which leads to the conclusion: AO is the most expensive MMO out there at the moment.

I honestly ask myself, why? The grafics are 2000ish, the gameplay is like in any other mmo (because ofc in that time this game was released, this type of gameplay was fun), Funcom told their community for over 3 (4?) years now that they will release a new grafics-engine which seems to be a complete lie -

So in the end: Why 17,99 €?

I for myself wanted to get back half a year ago, but this amount just shocked me.

They have deployed an item store as well. The store contains social items, vehicles, pets, buff cans and xp stims for example.

Where do you get those numbers from??

I live in Norway and I am paying 14.99 Euros pr mnth.

Originally posted by Mr_C

Where do you get those numbers from??

I live in Norway and I am paying 14.99 Euros pr mnth.

he propably just added the 15% vat ( EU tax law ) to the 14.99 E,,,, in US there is no VAT tax on games or computer progs in general,,, combined with the fact that 1 euro is worth noticeably more then 1 dollar, makes ao indeed one of the most, if not the most expensive ( counting monthly sub fee ) mmo's to play

with that said, there is ( or at least was when i last was playing ) a way arround it,,, i used some service called Pay By Cash ( or something simillar ), basicly a third party company like PayPall and such, but i registered with an US adress, just googled some florida hotel and used their adress

this allowed me to pay in dollars ( first saving ) and i didnt had to pay the damned 15% vat on top of it ( second saving )

with all that said, it is a sign a huge disrespect towards the EU gamer by Funcom ( or at least FC's financial departament - as we were told this decission was outside of competence of the team that works on AO ), and im saying this as a funcom fan, not a hater

PS. another thought, Norway is not a EU member, while you are a member of Schengen ( open borders ) and can access the free market of EU, its very possible the Norwegian law when it comes to taxing computer programs is different then the EU one

Originally posted by Kyleran
Even though I live in the US, the high sub fee for such an old title has always kept me from giving it a whirl.

yeah, its a very bad bussiness decission by FC, i mean i loooove the game and i cant justify to pay even in dollars for this game no more ( alltho i have two accounts and wouldnt be able to choose just one to sub too, its all or nothing for me ),,,

with that said, its still my biggest mmo love ever, i keep comming back to official forums, reading and hoping that soon will come the day that there are enuff players ingame to justify paying the sub fee x2

game is really amazing, like no other, but if you havent played it yet i have to disencourage you from trying it right now, better to wait a few months, till the new engine ( assuming FC finally dellivers on it ),,, right now it would give you just a bad impression on a great game wich would most likely disencourage you  from trying it out when it re-releases with new GFX

Originally posted by Doogiehowser
This is not new news. I stopped playing back in 2009 because of the same reason. AO costs more than any modern MMO which is quite ridiculous especially when TSW has gone B2P and they have made even more changes to AOC F2P model.

saddens me to say this, but unfortunately funcom's accountants never noticed the financial potential of free 2 play, and their games are at best a bad implementation of freemium, calling them f2p is just plain wrong;/ even TSW is somekind of b2p / freemium mix