Originally posted by Aerowyn
should of added a third option that said "I wouldn't pay a sub fee for any themepark MMO"

I voted no for this very reason and it doesn't just apply to themeparks.  I can't think of a game on the market right now that is worth a monthly sub fee (plus the xpac and other microtransaction fees) let alone $15/mo.

Went with NO.

Not speficially a fault of the game as much as I'd take the subscription as an indication that Anet has changed as a company, their priorities also would imply a shift I'm not sure I would be content with. They occupy a somewhat novel space as a developer, because they have already stood with one multiplayer game that was built on an online service, and thery supported it over the long run by introducing major expansions multipe times.

Given the similar model they have takes for their second game I generally assume they are staying with the trend. It's not really a good or bad thing. I respect that they have taken an approach not often taken.

If they are forced to change their approach due to monetary concenrs I might concede to a subscription. 

Otherwise, all aspects held constant, the introduction of a subscription model would instead imply the company has changed, and I would be wary of whether or not it's actually for the better.

Originally posted by Siveria
Honestly No mmo in recent years has been worth a sub fee, mostly because they are all just clones of the same game at their core (World fo warcraft). Only mmo's I'd actually slightly considering worth subbing too are FF11 and or FF14, since neither of them are biliant wow-like mmorpgs.

  While I wouldn't pay a sub for GW2, I'd hardly say that it is in any real way a WoW clone, like it or hate it it does do enough different to stand on itas own merits

I'm not inclined to pay a subscription for any game. Subscriptions may be appealing for some, but I'm too casual to step into sub based games anymore. Sub games are just plain boring without you realising it. They need you to chase the carrot and keep on paying. And when that wears out, here's a new expansion and you can do he chase all over again.

When you start thinking about it, you just have to say no to subscription games out of principle. They're just not good for you.

F2P can get mighty expensive when you get sucked in, that's why B2P and a non-P2W CS is so appealing to me.

While the game is good fun, them coming back on their word and charging a monthly fee would be a dealbreaker. I've already bought 3 character slot expansions, 3 bank expansion and a pirate costume with in game gold. Somebody paid for those 4760 gems though, somebody who need tons of gold. Had I bought it with real money it would have cost me an extra 60€ or 4 months worth of subscription.

I think Anet is doing great with B2P and just expansions and convenience in the shop.

I don't think you can make conversions like that, because F2P Cash Shop items of popular MMOs have the players that purchase things paying, on average, more per month than they would in a subscription game.

For example, a friend of mine and her group of friends bought $60-100 worth of cash shop items a month for MapleStory (high school students are great sources of expendable income). That's not to say they were getting 4 months worth of gameplay every month.

As for Guild Wars 2, I think they're injecting gems into the economy to keep the conversion rate affordable. While I'm sure there are people paying for gems, I don't think there are so many as to fuel the entire market through player purchases alone.

Originally posted by Karteli

There are games worthy of a subscription

I don't agree.  Not anymore.

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Originally posted by Aerowyn
should of added a third option that said "I wouldn't pay a sub fee for any themepark MMO"

I voted no for this very reason and it doesn't just apply to themeparks.  I can't think of a game on the market right now that is worth a monthly sub fee (plus the xpac and other microtransaction fees) let alone $15/mo.

This, and what am I even paying for? Every three, four months, I've basically bought a new game (45-60$) and in most sub based mmorpgs I havent seen anything added to the game in that time. There's propably a raid every uhm, what 5 months apart? Even then, is it really worth a full new game? I dont think so, and I dont raid, so go ahead and put that content into a cash shop rather, please.

Also the automatic sub fee "because it's a mmorpg" is crazy bad thing for the genre. People think sub fee makes the games better when in fact it ruins the genre. Why do we have so many crap games? Because devs think they can just drop a steaming pile of crap on us and we start paying a whopping 15$ a month for it simply for the genre tag it's under. These gold digger companies like cryptic pump crap on our faces in hopes of easy money because of the genre tag and because so many people think hey it's okay to pay monthly fee for whatever as long as it's a mmorpg.

Show me something truly amazing, a world instead of just a game, with incredible rate for patches and for varying content and then we can look at a 5-10$ sub fee, but untill then no way. Currently there's nothing worth a 5-10$ sub fee, let alone 15 a month.

One of the major differences between B2P model and sub based MMORPGs is pretty simple.

In a sub based model, the purpose of the developer is to make you pay to play as long as possible. That's why those games have a ton of built in mandatory grinds the player has to go through to remain competitive. They can release content whenever they want, they are in no hurry, as long as the hamsters keep on running the threadmill. A raid with a few bosses will keep them busy 6+ months, and will therefore generate 6+ months of subscription income, how convenient! Not much effort on developer side, for a huge return. $15 per month to grind the same stuff over and over again because developers are lazy.

In a B2P MMORPG like GW2, they can't rely on those threadmills, since there's no subscription fee, so player would just run the hamster wheel for free. They are kind of forced to release regular quality content additions which contain elements the player will want to buy in order to generate income. There's no point in adding a raid that players will farm for 6+ months in GW2, that would be wasted developer time. This first content addition, halloween, is free with some elements sold in the cash shop, but I expect to see bigger paying expansion packs with a ton of content coming quite soon too.

I personally prefer paying $30 or even more (depending on quality/quantity) every few months and get new content often than to pay $15 per month for 6 months to be able to farm the same stuff over and over again.

When I play WoW now, I go through the new content once and cancel my account until the next content release, because I think grinding the same scripted mobs dozens of times to get some virtual purple item is not worth $15 per month.

No I would not.

It's been designed with microtransactions and payed expansions in mind. For me to pay a subscription on top of that would be charity, and ANet does okay without.

In my opinion, there are 2 routes for MMOs these days;

1) Monthly sub with free expansions, akin to EVE ( not counting their novelty cash shop ).

2) No sub, buy to play with payed expansions and microtransactions.

That said, I don't mind a cash shop in either version but if it's for a sub game they have to be damn careful what they put in there.

Something like TSW really isn't acceptable to me, one example being their abysmal options in character creation while their cash shop is brimming with clothing options.

I'm actually quite fond of the LotRO model. You get the base game for free, can play the storyline without paying, earn points to unlock quest packs while playing and if you ever pick up an expansion, or pay a bit of cash, most of your character limitations are gone.

For me this meant that efter buying a cheap MoM expansion and earning some points in-game, the game is more or less fully unlocked for me ( as I don't do the PvP or much Instance play) to enjoy.

And while some might disagree, since they are more hardcore about the game, to me this hybrid ensures that I am not pushed into the shop all the time.

I don't have to go there to equip items like in Vanguard or the soon to be SWTOR F2P model, and mechanics like Instances are available to me, in an amount that is actually suitable for a "free" player.

For me to ever need more content, I would have to be so invested in the game that paying a sub or microtransactions is completely justifiable.

So, TLDR; for me it's a tie between the GW2 pay upfront, play the entire game for free and pay extra if you're really into it and the LotRO pay nothing upfront, pay a small amount to play most of the game and pay extra if you're really into it.

Originally posted by tv2zulu

Something like TSW really isn't acceptable to me, one example being their abysmal options in character creation while their cash shop is brimming with clothing options.

TSW's model is the ultimate example of greed.

I'm actually quite fond of the LotRO model. You get the base game for free, can play the storyline without paying, earn points to unlock quest packs while playing and if you ever pick up an expansion, or pay a bit of cash, most of your character limitations are gone.

The big problem with LOTRO's model now is that they broke their promise, and you have items in the cash shop that are mandatory for character progression and gearing up at max level. Even if you are not affected much, it's still a very greedy system, and very bad for the customer. The only reason why I still play LOTRO is because I have a lifetime and I get 500 "free" TPs per month, so I don't have to spend one cent into their shop.

Things like inventory slots, charater slots, bank slots, which both GW2 and LOTRO have, I can understand, it makes sense. But when you start to have to use the cash shop for your character to progress, then it passes the limit for me.

Originally posted by Yamota
Pretty dumb poll if you ask me because if you ask if people would pay for something they currently get for free then obviously the answer would be no, for most people. Now if you instead asked if you would pay a sub. fee but in return they would get rid of the cash shop and have content on a monthly or bi-montlhy schedule then I think the outcome would be different.

What mmo puts out content on a monthly or even bi-monthly basis?

Originally posted by The_Korrigan

One of the major differences between B2P model and sub based MMORPGs is pretty simple.

In a sub based model, the purpose of the developer is to make you pay to play as long as possible. That's why those games have a ton of built in mandatory grinds the player has to go through to remain competitive. They can release content whenever they want, they are in no hurry, as long as the hamsters keep on running the threadmill. A raid with a few bosses will keep them busy 6+ months, and will therefore generate 6+ months of subscription income, how convenient! Not much effort on developer side, for a huge return. $15 per month to grind the same stuff over and over again because developers are lazy.

In a B2P MMORPG like GW2, they can't rely on those threadmills, since there's no subscription fee, so player would just run the hamster wheel for free. They are kind of forced to release regular quality content additions which contain elements the player will want to buy in order to generate income. There's no point in adding a raid that players will farm for 6+ months in GW2, that would be wasted developer time. This first content addition, halloween, is free with some elements sold in the cash shop, but I expect to see bigger paying expansion packs with a ton of content coming quite soon too.

I personally prefer paying $30 or even more (depending on quality/quantity) every few months and get new content often than to pay $15 per month for 6 months to be able to farm the same stuff over and over again.

When I play WoW now, I go through the new content once and cancel my account until the next content release, because I think grinding the same scripted mobs dozens of times to get some virtual purple item is not worth $15 per month.

You are looking at the worst possible scenario for sub. games and try to make that the norm. Where as in fact most sub. based MMORPGs I have played had a lot more content added to them then a F2P/B2P game.

And again you are making it like Gw2 is a B2P game only where as it is B2P+microtransactions which means that any content which they add to the game will have in mind to increase the revenue in the microtransaction area and not add quality content. Even paid expansions will add things with microtransaction in mind because that will be their longtime revenue stream.

So in other words in any games with cash shop, the long term gaming will be centered around the cash shop because that is the long term revenue stream where as in sub. based games they are free to add whatever makes the game more fun rather than what makes people go to the cash shop to have more fun.

Originally posted by Istavaan

Originally posted by Yamota
Pretty dumb poll if you ask me because if you ask if people would pay for something they currently get for free then obviously the answer would be no, for most people. Now if you instead asked if you would pay a sub. fee but in return they would get rid of the cash shop and have content on a monthly or bi-montlhy schedule then I think the outcome would be different.

What mmo puts out content on a monthly or even bi-monthly basis?

Old time MMORPGs did. AC 1 and EQ had regular content added over time but it was just an example. The point is what they added content over time and big content additions were in expansions. I much rather have that than a model which will add content based on you going to the cash shop.

Originally posted by Istavaan
I've paid a monthly sub for lower quality mmo's so yes i would. If rift can justify a sub then so can gw2

Didn't know Rift was low quality. Then again i guess I'm the opposite of you. I'd happily pay monthly for rift but GW2 I'm honestly upset I even paid for the game to begin with... it honestly felt more like a $20 B2P game to me then the $60 I paid.  Its all personal opinion though so to each his own. You feel its worth Monthly and feel rift is lack luster, I think rift is one of the best MMOs out there (particularly if your main love is raiding) and GW2 ended up feeling like a very weak AAA title.