I think this sort of nickel and diming MT scheme won't survive compared to pure cash shop or pure monthly subscription models for one reason: they're a conflict of interest. What I mean by that is that even though both are designed to be profitable, both have divergent customers. Monthly subscribers want more content and technically don't mind time sinks if they're valid like armor repair costs, travel time, and etc.

Cash shop customers want their fun *NOW* and have little time to invest in character development (itemization, leveling, and customization via AA/talent point systems), so they're going to buy it up front, content is of little interest to such a customer as they're more or less playing to socialize rather than playing to beat the game content. So, really what such hybrid CS/subscription MMOs are doing is trying to match up two different time preferences (low time preference subscribers and high time preference cash shoppers), which can't pan out due to this natural conflict of low vs high time preferences.

Granted, it's possible to try to meet in the middle by producing both content and itemization that is a less of a time sink, but what I've found in such arrangements is often bleak games where achievement in terms of character progression is trivial, thus content is easier to expend, and that end game lacks further character customization because one has to *pay* for said customization in the cash shop. This is very true of games like Champions Online, which are initially fun, but when you reach end game, those who invest in the cash shop often have more fun than those who don't (especially in terms of character costume pieces).

Maybe I'm being overly critical and unreceptive to the idea of a hybrid CS/subscription model, but I suspect my criticism has weight at least on the grounds of conflicting customer interests (or time preference conflict) which yields conflicting solutions for both.

Schilling's conservative attitude toward potential investors isn't new nor it is unwise. Many private ventures are often hawked on the markets these days with little or no knowledge given in advance to potential investors. Thus, many investors get tied to a venture they thought was one thing and turned out to be something else entirely. This was quite true with the Dot Com Bubble in the 1990s, where I've seen people have their fortunes wiped out because they didn't want to bother checking the basics of the venture they invested, and whether it even had legs. I'm glad there's some folks like Schilling in the world still as they show that entrepreneurship isn't based on horse puckey degrees in "Business Management" or "Financing." If it succeeds, he's a good entrepreneur; if he fails, he's a poor one but will come out the wiser either way. And all of us the better for it if he is the principle investor to pay for either success or failure.

Not me, I tried playing AC1 some months back, I liked the game still, but I wanted something new. I was hoping the skeleton staff that Turbine has for AC1 would've put something new in to the game, but nope. It's the same old game. Graphical overhauls aren't always the be all, end all of games just as innovation isn't. So, please stop with the faulty reasoning on your part of pure either-or. Life is rarely that simple.

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Originally posted by nariusseldon

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Originally posted by ladyattis

 

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Originally posted by nariusseldon
Govt regulations will solve all of that. The only reason why there is a security reason is because no one is scrutinizing the industry.

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Then you clearly don't know the failures of governments in any prohibition/regulation sphere. *sighs*

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Prohibition is different from regulations. Alcohol and tobacco is regulated here in the US and it works to a large extent. It obviously does not eliminate all the problems, but it does eliminate the crime problem came with prohibition.

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Nope, most of the regulations are written by the corporations in those industries. Same with toy makers and many other industries. Welcome to reality, friend, it's harsh and unfair.

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Originally posted by nariusseldon
Govt regulations will solve all of that. The only reason why there is a security reason is because no one is scrutinizing the industry.

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Then you clearly don't know the failures of governments in any prohibition/regulation sphere. *sighs*

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Originally posted by uquipu
 Second Life is the only true sandbox game out there.
Remember, theme park is anything developed by a dev.
Sandbox is anything developed by a player.  Second Life is like 90% player created.
Second Life is successful.
 

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Yet it's software architecture is horrid. Trust me, there are reasons why some folks avoid SL; the software alone is one of them.

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Originally posted by Teala
Men playing as females in mmos thread # 87,776,253,422 and counting.

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Yeah, I have no clue as to why certain men have an issue with the whole thing. Does anyone cry that they have to play Zoey for an online session of L4D? NO. They just play the damn game. If you don't like the idea of female toons being piloted by male players, then please pick another hobby as video games are still largely a male oriented past time. Much like working on cars, model airplanes, and contact sports. I can't justify why, but it's just a given for how things are going right now.

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Originally posted by TheHatter
**nvm previous post (if anyone read it) I  misunderstood**
 
Hopefully, this doesn't extend to impose on the Freedom of Speech and Press.

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It always does, as the State fears your opinion more than your gun.

Sorry, but I'm not with the OP on the whole name change thing in terms of preventing stalkers. To explain, one has to understand how a stalker thinks. Stalkers don't really care about reputation, if s/he is truly stalking you. S/he is obsessed, s/he want you, regardless of the reputation. And said stalker will continue until two things happen: you are dead or s/he is dead. Or possibly a third, where s/he gets a good jolt to the brain pan from an ECT technician. Anyways, pretending that the obsessed and deranged will ever be stopped by lack of name change services is typical from someone with no psychology background as they think human motives and value scales must be fixed and wholly rational (hint, they're not). So until you try to make another suggestion in the lines of "there oughta be a law" consider your logic in terms of the intended effects, then realize that the unintended effects is what you'll more than likely propagate.

To the OP, levels existed before UO, especially in terms of MUDs and PnP games. So to say that levels are bad because you personally decree it doesn't follow. And as for raiding from the second or third post; MUDs had raids too. The entire concept of the dungeon crawl was nothing more than a raid. Many a player of a Copper or Diku derivative remembers raiding Dracula's castle, or some other stock zone (killing trash mobs and then moving on to the actual boss that could have taken anywhere between a few minutes to an hour and a half to kill).

But back to the point of the OP's decree, UO's system was an utter failure due to the fact that people can and do minmax. That is the nature of humans in terms of their existence; seeking the maximum of one's own 'psychic' (psychological) profit (or in other terms: the reduction in uneasiness or pain in one's life). In theory, skill systems are meant to avoid an abusive expression of minmaxing, but the reality is that even in UO the atypical tankmage was possible, and no amount of apologetics will negate that fact. All one can do is find more novel means to allow for minmaxing to lead to alternative expressions and/or specializations. In this fashion, then a skill system can be useful, but special pleading to nostalgia and keeping up the cognitive dissonance of the utter failure that was (and is) UO won't ever lead anywhere positive or fruitful.

The only place that I've bought 'gold' was in Secondlife, before the introduction of the SLExchange. It was through the folks that use to own XstreetSL (I forget what it was called before, forgive me). Everything else, what's the point? I'm not the kind of person that feels bad about having a toon with non-set or tier gear. So, I don't feel the need to buy my way to 'uberdom' or whatever.

Folks that want to buy their way to excellence are the kind of folks that often want to skip to the end of a movie or book, they're more about the immediate gratification. And all more for them, as it means they'll always be ready to drop a few coins for that moment, which they perceive as more valuable, of pleasure they wanted. I don't think they should be punished or rewarded, I just want them to be ready to acknowledge some of us have no issue with waiting for things or that we savor the experience over the sheer quantity of sensory input (as pleasure).

And as such, I think there should be games that are catered to them, but please, for the love of everyone's sanity, quit trying to barge into games that don't cater to it (like EQ2, Aion, Fallen Earth, and etc). Let us low time preference folks have some peace and you high time preference folks can have your microtranscation games.

Been tried with the war on drugs, do you really think it will work any better in a virtual world?

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Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

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Originally posted by alakram

The AI in mmorpgs is processed in the server. The server is loaded with tons and tons of request per second. Anything ina mmorpg that needs to be done fast must be easy. Thats why the AI is so "stupid", it can't be any other way if you want so many people playing at a time.
 
Edit: If developers could implement a better AI I'm sure they will do it and print this feature in the box: "The best AI seen in any MMORPG". It's just lack of server capability.

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Good post, but they could put in better AI, IF they were willing to sacrifice other things. There is no reason instanced areas couldn't offer much better AI right now. It isn`t a priority.

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I'm surprised no one has said DUST 514. O.o I know it's probably going not come out in '11, but the fact that CCP is trying to add metagaming as an explicit function of EVE and DUST seems interesting and possibly game making or breaking.

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Originally posted by Josher

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Originally posted by ladyattis

In terms of narrative structure and content, yes I think the Asians have a more innovative mindset as they're not totally enveloped in the Post-Modern mindset. They're still chewing on the Enlightenment and even adding some important concepts to it centuries after the fact. In some ways, despite the flashiness of their games, they seem to want to ask serious questions with some of their titles that we here in the so-called "West" have forgotten or ignored entirely. And it seems games are an outlet for them on such issues.

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Tentical creatures with phalic symbols and skimpy armor that resenbles thongs is SOOOO elightened and Post Modern=)
That was a joke..... before some anime twearp blows a blood vessel and rage nerds all over the screen;)

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OIC WUT U DID DER. :3

For me, the sandbox idea is still good if one recognizes it's not about simulating reality (all one has to do get a bit of reality is simply go outside for a little while and explore what other human beings are doing...), but about adding a means for narrative structures to be controlled or manipulated by the other users (to the point that even conflicting narratives evolve and alter the course of other narratives in the game). In essence, a sandbox from my point of view is the means to tell a story in such a way that others can see it unfolding too (although from their own perspective).

In terms of narrative structure and content, yes I think the Asians have a more innovative mindset as they're not totally enveloped in the Post-Modern mindset. They're still chewing on the Enlightenment and even adding some important concepts to it centuries after the fact. In some ways, despite the flashiness of their games, they seem to want to ask serious questions with some of their titles that we here in the so-called "West" have forgotten or ignored entirely. And it seems games are an outlet for them on such issues.

To the OP: I think what you're having is a standard burn out issue. Some folks have higher thresholds for such burn out, others are like me with quite low burn out thresholds before we go bonkers and do something else entirely (although some games never get boring for me like TF2). Here's what I suggest, take account for each account per month you pay, then add up the hours you put into it and imagine what other activities you could have done with the time or things you could have bought with the money. From there, then re-evaluate your value scale as to see if the MMOs in question really fit as priority one, if not it's time to move on to the more truly important values or ends. (Hint: it's not an addiction to all the pop-psychologists and pseudo-psychologists that troll these forums...)

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Originally posted by SnarlingWolf
Devs have pointed out before that despite the complaints about kill task and other boring quests that they also tend to be the most done quests. They are easy and a good source of xp so despite a person saying they hate it they keep running them.
 
Devs have also said before that when there are complex involved quests only a small portion of the population (which complains about not having more interesting quests) don't complete it. Why? Because truthfully most of the players complaining about such things don't actually want it, they want to level as fast as they can over having good story and fun quests. So they do the kill tasks and fedex quests for the quick easy xp to level up.
 
Metrics are why more and more MMOs keep having more and more of the simple standard boring quests, because despite the forum outcrys the players own actions show those quests are much greater successes. And if something is more successesful and at the same time 10-20x easier to produce, why wouldn't they create a million of those killtasks.
 
Modern day players don't like complex and interesting because it requires thinking and work. So when a quest is tricky or makes you think people either don't do it or find a walk through. If a quest takes skill by requiring tricky jumps and puzzles then players avoid it because they might fail which means lost time with leveling. Players want easy simple and straight to the point, which means seeing the same 3 quests over and over.

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Surface measures (statistical data) does not indicate true laws/rules.

Not dead yet. :3