I believe, as always, that there is room for different monetization models in our industry. I’ve been a long-standing member of the “I love subscription-based games” model and since I’m going for a niche audience, I think it makes sense to use that model again. I really don’t want to create a game that has to figure out how to get a small percentage of people to pay for a game while the largest percentage of them will not pay for the game even if it’s great. In addition, since this game is geared to RvR, I believe we would end up with having to support a lot of people who are just “kicking the tires” and have no intention of being long-time player. Now, if the game is PvE –based, that’s not so bad. However, if you are trying to build a Community, that influx of players could hurt it.

It really boils down to the fact that I’d rather have 30-50K people playing and paying each month than having to support 1M players hoping to get 5% of them to pay. Now, I also think we can and should revisit the whole “All MMORPG subscriptions should cost $14.95 for one month” thing and be more aggressive in our pricing including lowering the price for certain subs but I’ll talk more about that down the road. What I will say though is I’m not interested in making this game one that needs “whales” to be profitable, nor of making the game $20 per month.

Guy With Head Screwed On Right

Originally posted by OgreRaper

Originally posted by Fendel84M
No pve? Meh

Nope, this game is not meant for Raiders / PvE'ers.

PvP or GTFO!

Because there's no such thing a PvP/RvR raid...

This is interesting.  I thought "sandbox" would be the word of 2013.  Not it appears "rvr" is trying for the title.

There are several points in the article that give me the feeling he's living in the past, despite claims to the otherwise, because he still seems to have an archaic mindset.  I guess he's speaking to the rvr contrived-faction fans.

Originally posted by Wighty
This guy wins the F2P vs. Sub argument hands down!

right just like Rift, TERA, TSW, etc.

having to wave goodbye to your co-workers after a few months of your ship date is so GREAT! constantly laying off people and switching business models as a safety net is the way it's meant to be!

sub or not, only good games grow and stay afloat.

Originally posted by Scottgun

I believe, as always, that there is room for different monetization models in our industry. I’ve been a long-standing member of the “I love subscription-based games” model and since I’m going for a niche audience, I think it makes sense to use that model again. I really don’t want to create a game that has to figure out how to get a small percentage of people to pay for a game while the largest percentage of them will not pay for the game even if it’s great. In addition, since this game is geared to RvR, I believe we would end up with having to support a lot of people who are just “kicking the tires” and have no intention of being long-time player. Now, if the game is PvE –based, that’s not so bad. However, if you are trying to build a Community, that influx of players could hurt it.

It really boils down to the fact that I’d rather have 30-50K people playing and paying each month than having to support 1M players hoping to get 5% of them to pay. Now, I also think we can and should revisit the whole “All MMORPG subscriptions should cost $14.95 for one month” thing and be more aggressive in our pricing including lowering the price for certain subs but I’ll talk more about that down the road. What I will say though is I’m not interested in making this game one that needs “whales” to be profitable, nor of making the game $20 per month.

Guy With Head Screwed On Right

No kidding.

It's refreshing to read wise words in such a tragic time for the genre. My wallet will likely be open to this promising title.

Originally posted by Vorthanion

Originally posted by OgreRaper

Originally posted by Fendel84M
No pve? Meh

Nope, this game is not meant for Raiders / PvE'ers.

PvP or GTFO!

I wouldn't be so quick to think there will be no PvE.  Like Mark said in the interview, DAoC would not have been nearly as successful without its PvE content and like he also said, he and his crew have learned from their mistakes and triumphs.  So, not having PvE would be a huge mistake, but that doesn't mean the game couldn't or shouldn't still have a greater focus on the RvR aspect.

 

I agree with you here, I hope the intent is to make it focused on RvR out of the gate, so we arent faced with RvR rebalancing later down the road, due to a PvE focus at launch.

Back in it's heyday when the BG's were always full in all the level tiers, it was immense fun leveling toons just in RvR alone. You could rank all the way up to max level and have some decent RR by the time you maxed out, without ever having to run all over hell and Hibernia to do quests. And then head on off to do RvR in the frontiers..

Ahh the memories..

Id rather have s sub to wipe out the buy to win mode of "ftp" games any day.

Played Daoc an loved it, my best mmo times where their.

I can only hope for a more serious look none of this panda quaggan backpack silly stuff :).

How can RvR cause a game to fail?  It was the center piece of DAoC.

DAoC failed because Mythic treated players poorly.

Originally posted by TribeofOne
why name the game after 1 of the 3 factions? is Camelot the "good" or "light" faction? Id consider changing it to something more inclusive, but i guess you're also trying draw some hype by association.

 

What is the last word in DAoC?

PvP done RvR style!!!    Good reason to be excited!  And as for people saying there won't be PvE, lol - The frontiers of camelot had lots of PvE mixed right in.  I always thought there could of been more roaming giants and creatures to mix it up with. 

Didn't UO mix in lots of creatures to kill and PvP was everywhere.  Why would anyone assume he won't have creatures to kill in his game?   Let's give the man time to tell us his entire vision. 

I for one am happy to hear about this game as I am planning to play and like TESO, however, I am already dreading doing 1,000+ quests.  (Maybe Mark will leave out quests in CU!!!)  lol

Originally posted by cronius77
torvanldr are you not in every single thread for guild wars 2 defending it? That game has realm vs realm and so does your favorite game so how exactly is he living in the past? Im asking sencerely also not being condesending. Realm vs Realm has been asked for by a huge chunk of players for every single release since wow. People enjoy fighting for their server or realm against 2 other teams not just 1 .This is far from living in the last when the guys webblog about a year ago was getting glowed up by tons of posts and comments wanting him to make DAOC 2 and more realm vs realm. People love camelot so I do not see why this title wouldnt sell tons in the end. Hes trying to make an appeal to old DAOC vets and tells everyone right from the start this title is going to be made to fill that niche crowd and he doesnt want a million subs just like 50 or 60k.

 

cranius7,

Defend what?  Is GW2 in danger?  GW2 isn't an rvr game.  I have a great time in WvW, but it's still themepark battleground pvp.  I love playing GW2 and the community there, but the WvW isn't the anchor for me.  It's the people I play with and the fact that it's Guild Wars.  I've been playing in that universe since it came out.

I'm skeptical because I think it's a bunch of hooey.  He knows exactly what words will garner support for his kickstarter.  He used them all through the interview (sandbox, rvr, themepark lamentations, etc, bleh).

Let's say he can squeek it out and make the game for $20M and get 60,000 players.  Each player would need to pay them over $333 just for them to break even.  How is he goig to get roi?  How muc does he have to make per person per unit of time to return on time?  If it costs 30M and he can only get 50,000 players then each one would need to pay $500 just for them to break even.

Tiered subscriptions?  That doesn't send out a warning bells not to mention sub-locked game access?  If you're going to fork out $15/mo then why would you do it in this and not ESO or GW2 and TSW since you consider the latter two rvr.

I'm sayiing people should look a little more critically and don't eat it up just because he throws you a few gamer sex words like rvr and sandbox.  If he stands up to a little scrutiny over time then he'll be worth your support.  I don't think it will because nothing in that interview adds up.