I think alot of the MMOs are doing right by aiming for f2p rather than sub - not to mention boxed versions.   There is one giant that is dominating the MMo market atm and to get ppl to play something else - going free download and free trial is the best way to get to players and allow them to try the game.

What have we learned from the last two years of MMOs ?  Exaclty - NONE of the MMOs comming out have delivered.  It turned into pre -order campaign promising everything and delivering nothing.  Is that what gamers want ?  Is that better than free to play ?  Nope its not.  

But here is my question.... Why is there no game going JUST SUB ?  Eve online have done that for years now and are building up their game by adding free content on regulare basis.  It also gives the new players chance to enjoy the ENTIRE game instead of forcing them to buy 2-3 expansions to play with their friends.  

The free to play games are improving all the time now.  I really enjoy games like Atlantica and Runes of Magic.  In my opinion these games are better than many of the boxed subed games like AOC and WAR. 

The main reason why F2P gets battered is because the no lifers cant handle a game beeing about something other than playing the longest.  Any moron that playes 30-50 hours per week feels he is the best - and if you can play 100+ you are God. 

Originally posted by heartless

Originally posted by junzo316

Originally posted by ProfRed

(Cryptic went so far to ask for subscription and has item shop ... i feel trainwreck coming)

 Cryptic is a joke right now.  Lifetime sub offer that expires before launch.  RMT with sub. 

It's funny you say this.  CO is number one on D2D,  maybe the joke is on you.

 

No, the joke is on the people who bought a life time subscription.

I think that remains to be seen, unless you have consulted Cleo on this subject...

Originally posted by kal08

F2P, P2P, RMT... whatever, as long the game is well made and FUN

If someone cant spend $20 bucks/month on a game, there is always free TV channels right?

For me, it isn't about the cost to the player unless they really go overboard.  It's about these companies making more profits than they deserve by selling at best, the same old crap and at worst, even less content than traditional MMOs.  Just because the cost to us isn't overwhelming, it doesn't justify the outright greed of these companies.

Originally posted by brezel

when you see a interesting f2p, you just download it, play it and when you do not like it you just uninstall and forget it! 

 

Why play an MMO at ALL if you are just going to quit after a month or so? Besides the cash shops, F2P turns me off because I don't see a lot of end game content in them.

I want a game I can progress in and be entertained by for at least a year. If a month was enough, I'd just buy new solo or team-based games each month.

No the P2P age isnt dead, the P2P for a crappy subpar game is now dead. People arent going to cough up 200+ bucks a year for something that is only fun sometimes...however, they wont mind playing for free and occasionally purchasing something to assist the fun.

So, no I thoroughly expect games like aion to do very well, where as certain other games that failed to deliver, few you listed, will end up being F2P.

Originally posted by Tailz2k7

Originally posted by pb1285n

 Honestly I wouldn't even call Age of Conan or Warhammer a AAA title. The only games I would say that are worthy of that title are WoW, LOTRO, and maybe Final Fantasy XI. There are probably more but I can't think of them at the moment.

These games that have gone f2p or are thinking of going f2p never were AAA. They were overhyped junk with popular IP. MMORPG are different from single player games. You can't sell 1,000,000 copies on hype and then be considered a success, you have to mantain those numbers by making a quality game and very few companies do that.

Unfortunately out of desperation they go f2p and hope it pays off. Honestly the reason why these games are failing so hard is really the rediculous expectations. There was a time when a game could have 50k subscribers and still be a success.

 

your an idiot throwing your opinion out there like that... it's like sports... just because a major league team doesn't perform doesn't make it a NON Major League team... AoC and War were both AAA titles that were nitches . They met a player base and provided a service to those who wanted it and were able to fork out obscene dollars to make the product. Obscene dollars = AAA, AA or A would be lower budget titles made by less popular companies obviously. No AAA title is junk... AOC still claims 100k subs, War 100k subs... it's not great but it's not "Bad"  If either WAR or AoC go F2P they would BY FAR be the most played F2P titles because the quality of gameplay is so much more polished. See your entire frame of thought it F***ed Off. No MMO's are successful(Meaning hundreds of thousands of subs for 14.99/mo.)  other than WOW on the US market... Americans generally have lives(Meaning MMO's are an era sometimes you have a game you play the other times your working, school, women, or even console titles and IRL activities) ... Most of FFXI and WoW players are foriegn lands. It's how it works... thats business all MMO companies know US is where to hype and the rest of the world is where to actually turn profit. Question anything I had to say... google it.

Oh and pretty much every US MMO drops half the subs in the first 2 months. It's not that the games bad just half the people move on to one of the 300 other mmo's coming out within a month or 2.

First you call me an idiot for "throwing out my opinion", then you go and spew out your own opinion like fact.

The problem is you don't seem to be able to define AAA yourself. Does the money put into it make it a AAA game? Is it the company behind it?

Does that mean when Vanguard was being developed it wasn't a AAA title because Sigil wasn't a well known company and now it is because SOE runs it?

What about a game developed by a small no name company that some how makes it big? Is it still not a AAA title or does it become one because you said you're either a AAA title or you're not, things don't change.

Would you consider Dungeons and Dragons a AAA title?|
What about the Matrix Online?

Both had tons of money thrown at it and both are being run by big name companies.

100k may have been great at one point in time, but unfortunately companies are spending so much money to develop games that 100k just can't cut it anymore.

Oh and you are a moron for stereotyping American and Asian gamers.
 

Originally posted by junzo316

Originally posted by heartless

Originally posted by junzo316

Originally posted by ProfRed

(Cryptic went so far to ask for subscription and has item shop ... i feel trainwreck coming)

 Cryptic is a joke right now.  Lifetime sub offer that expires before launch.  RMT with sub. 

It's funny you say this.  CO is number one on D2D,  maybe the joke is on you.

 

No, the joke is on the people who bought a life time subscription.

I think that remains to be seen, unless you have consulted Cleo on this subject...

I don't need a psychic to make an educated prediction based on what I have seen and experienced since September of last year.

I could be wrong, then again, I could be right. I'm a huge fan of Cryptic, they are great guys, very community oriented and talented. I wish them lots of luck with CO and STO but I won't pay $199 for a shell of what could have been an amazing game. Especially since RMT is part of the equation.

I think Good Games will continue to be P2P.

Crappy games that lots of people are willing to spend money on in item shops will be F2P.

Problem is a lot of crappy games have been released lately.

TOR is going to be P2P. Might have an item shop for some clothes or other minor junk, but hte main part of the game is based on a subscription.

Same with Champions Online.

These look like they have a chance of being Good GAmes, but if theya re crap, they will go F2P with item shop.

Number one money maker STILL Pay to Play, not F2P. Yes, we're talking WoW.

Number one reason I like P2P is the community. I want to play with ONLY other players that can and will fork over at least 14.95 per month to play the game. I do NOT want to play with anyone that can log on but won't or can't pay 14.95 a month to play the game. Sucks to lose your sub that you've invested 14.95 a month on for several months, but why not be an asshat if it's free.

Pay to play for limited numbers of instances ?  Thats WOW

Pay to play for Laggy RVR content ?  Thats WAR

Pay to play for DX10 that isn't in ?  Thats AOC

How about skipping the box and actually just pay subs for these games !  Or skip the subs if you can't deliver the basics.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Chronicles Of Spellborn just went free to play.

Free version of DDO is released in few days (highly recommended)

APB announced game will be F2P

Runes of Magic is F2P almost as good as major AAA titles , ( or Atlantica that is not to shabby either )

Free Realms is F2P

Heroes of Nevereth , free

... list goes on

Battlefield Heroes just announced 3 million registered users, half of which made purchases. That sounds profitable...

 

Is this the dawn of age of free MMOs ?

 

I for one know , i will hold my subscription money.

Nothing on the market is worth my subscription. And as new comers CO and Aion ... definitely not.

(Cryptic went so far to ask for subscription and has item shop ... i feel trainwreck coming)

 

Have good free gaming

 

 

 

no my little padawan:

1. the age of subscription is not dead, it is the age of quality games good enough for p2p that is dead or almost dead.
2. with so much microtransaction crap and browser bullshit and flash nonsense the market is flooded with lowest quality shit that can not compete on a p2p base. so what we all see is the consequence of this.

I don't think the subscription model is dead at all, I think we are just seeing a whole lot of half finished deeply flawed games desperate to find a way to make any money at all(DDO). There will be more high quality games made and the subscription model will make them money. IMO any game with an item shop or whatever else is simply admiting they aren't good enough to compete in the big market with the big dogs.

I actually think the subscription era comes to an end. With so many MMO our, and thats F2P competition, thats what i think. I think microstransactions are fine also, kids dont like them, is ok.

Originally posted by Neanderthal

Originally posted by Lobotomist

I for one know , i will hold my subscription money.

Nothing on the market is worth my subscription.

Exactly.  I would even go so far as to say that none of these games are worth playing for free.  In fact, THEY would have to pay ME to play most of the games that are out now and the ones to be released in the next few years.

The only reason I keep coming to this site is force of habit.  I've lost nearly all hope for mmorpgs.  I have just one tiny little shred of hope left (not for anything specific) and that hope is hanging by a thread over a thousand foot drop...and all the devs in the world are tossing throwing stars at the thread.

These fuckers have completely lost sight of the fantastic idea behind mmorpgs.  The idea is (was) to create a persistant WORLD in which thousands of people would interact and have adventures.  Instead they create these linear pathways we walk down.  They guide you through the "experience" every step of the way, telling you what to do and where to go.  Half the time time we're in separate instances from the other players.  The entire focus and motivating factor in these games is endlessly upgrading your character untill, finally, you just don't give a damn anymore about getting that next +.01% dps.  Interaction with other players has been reduced to the time you spend with your guildies in an instance.  The entire idea of creating a world has been completely abandoned except by the occassional indie devs who always find some way to screw things up even they do manage to put out a semi-finished game.

So I'm just watching from the sidelines hoping that some day someone who can do something about it will remember the old dream that started all of this in the first place.

QUOTING, FOR THE MOTHA ******** TRUTH BROTHER YEAAAAAH... dang.

A P2P game won't ever go F2P unless it's in serious financial trouble.  Companies that make this sort of transition due so as a last ditch effort before they are eventually forced to pull the plug on the game.  It's a nice alternative I think, but it's hardly going take the place of the P2P model.

That said, I certainly think there's room to implement cash shop features in P2P games, which is obviously what many MMORPG developers are doing.  It's quite an untapped market, and such features could lead to a more positive gaming experience, though the flip side is it could also drive players away.  MMORPG devs need to be careful how they implement these features in pay-to-play games.  I sort of like the "cash shop" in EQ2 where all that can be bought are XP potions (which are far from needed), pets, and appearance armor.  It's a nice feature that can be used to give greater character customization, but no item needs to be introduced which unbalances the gameplay and splits the userbase, hence why a balance has to be made.

P2P still means what it says, you pay a subscription to play the game.

F2P is an advertising hype word, the game is not free so why does that word appear in it? Yes if you play for a week its free, or never use the cash shop, which hardly likely.

I do not expect MMO companies to release a free game, they have to make a profit. But I do object to a word that is a deliberate misnomer to fool people into joining their game.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Chronicles Of Spellborn just went free to play.

Free version of DDO is released in few days (highly recommended)

APB announced game will be F2P

Runes of Magic is F2P almost as good as major AAA titles , ( or Atlantica that is not to shabby either )

Free Realms is F2P

Heroes of Nevereth , free

 

 

 

So your list is made up of games that are either not released yet, were F2P from the beginning, or are CoS and DDO, which were never AAA titles.

Swing and a miss.

First off, non of those titles can be considered AAA in anyway shape or form.  All are games that never achieved much success as a subscription game.  Content is the defining difference.  DDO's problem is that while they have content they don't have pvp.  Spellborn was mediocre at best, it will be awhile before it has much content.

Subscriptions are not going away.

Age of Subscription is dead when WoW goes F2P.

 I think I've deduced the current formula:

 

• create a Godawful, linear, casual theme park game / grindfest

• create an online shop where people can purchase I WIN BUTTUNS for $500

• buy servers so idiots can play together and compare their $500 e-peens (this keeps them addicted)

 

i approve of this post.

and thats why f2p´s will never replace p2p´s. For those who want quick e-peens tho show off, f2p´s are the right choice. and there are enough of those people around to keep f2p´s going.

but there are also enough people who have another philosophy of gaming. and those will always go back to p2p´s.

I think what the current mmo's that to be charitable can be said to at least have failed to live up to expectations, is they've abandoned the original point of mmo's which was community building. I know a lot of people say they don't want that but lets face it, community is what keeps subscribers, subscribed.

They current trend of forced-story-based, you're-the-hero, theme park games is only interesting or fun for a lot of people for a few months, and for an mmo, few months participation just doesn't cut it.

They built games for instant gratification and thats all the gratification they provide.