Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by googajoob7

its pretty simple only a handful mmos are not worth the 15 dollars a month standard sub to the average mmo player where they may be worth 5-10 or the freemium model . its the dogmatic approach on the behalf of a lot of developers which is the problem and the idiots that ll problerby respond to this post saying i m happy to pay 15 dollars a month rather than another subscription model . well all i can say to them of course you are most likly your playing one of the handful of games that are worth it . and not the likes of warhammer , vanguard , everquest 2 , age of conan the list goes on and on . the game that appears to have got it right is dungeons and drgaons online offering both freemium and subscription options . thats the way to go for 95 percent of mmos in my opinion or if your game is older and unable to to attract the numbers of subs in once had . drop the price . if you offer the game at a third less and attract 50 percent more players ( for example)  then your increasing your revenue .

its pretty obvious which way mmos will go because like any market competition will eventually lead to price wars in sub fees . its only the most dogmatic fanbois who does nt have an idea what the real world is like would suggest the current status quo of 15 dollars a month standard subscription fee for all mmos is sustainable or even an attractive prospect .

talk about turkeys voting for christmas

i would rather the option of paying less or not at all unless i got into a game enough to want to buy moduals or expansions and be able to play several mmos a month on the side of one of the games that are worth a 15 dollar fee like eve , warcraft  or lord of the rings .

 

 

Subscription cost is not the problem with the majority of games on the market.  They simply are not worth investing time into.  Gameplay doesn't get better when the price is dropped from $15 to $5. 

Overall I get the basic of what you are trying to say, but it doesn't really factor in the real currency most people value, their play time. 

 

 

total rubbish . i guess thats why t1 is busy in warhammer online now its free and ddo is a revived game . i agree some mmos arnt worth investing time in them but that certainly does nt apply to the vast majority of less popular mmos . i would certainly maintain a sub to the likes of warhammer and age of conan at 5 dollars a month and i dont think i d be alone in that . i quite like elements of both those games as i do other mmos like city of heroes and everquest but not at the price they ask .

you just wait and see , when price drops and freemium models become a reality  how much it ll boost some flagging games . its inevitable now . a couple of years ago i argued that ddo should try some sort of free to play model . i had loads of smart comments from people could nt see the wisdom of changing the buisness model . i was proven right about that and i ll be proven right about this .

its pretty simple only a handful mmos are not worth the 15 dollars a month standard sub to the average mmo player where they may be worth 5-10 or the freemium model . its the dogmatic approach on the behalf of a lot of developers which is the problem and the idiots that ll problerby respond to this post saying i m happy to pay 15 dollars a month rather than another subscription model . well all i can say to them of course you are most likly your playing one of the handful of games that are worth it . and not the likes of warhammer , vanguard , everquest 2 , age of conan the list goes on and on . the game that appears to have got it right is dungeons and drgaons online offering both freemium and subscription options . thats the way to go for 95 percent of mmos in my opinion or if your game is older and unable to to attract the numbers of subs in once had . drop the price . if you offer the game at a third less and attract 50 percent more players ( for example)  then your increasing your revenue .

its pretty obvious which way mmos will go because like any market competition will eventually lead to price wars in sub fees . its only the most dogmatic fanbois who does nt have an idea what the real world is like would suggest the current status quo of 15 dollars a month standard subscription fee for all mmos is sustainable or even an attractive prospect .

talk about turkeys voting for christmas

i would rather the option of paying less or not at all unless i got into a game enough to want to buy moduals or expansions and be able to play several mmos a month on the side of one of the games that are worth a 15 dollar fee like eve , warcraft  or lord of the rings .

Originally posted by bigdaddysfe

Originally posted by Xondar123

Originally posted by Abrahmm

I agree with all of those except for #5. I don't want new ways to pay, I'm perfectly happy with a $15 subscription. Every new way to pay that I have seen only seems to benefit the developer, charging us more money for the same amount of content.

 

Agreed 100%.

 

Lol yeah don't give them any more ideas about how to squeeze water out of a rock. Pretty soon we will have to pay per-quest or get an order screen before we head into a dungeon.

 

 

i read number 5 in a totally different way . it seams to be a similar arguement to what i ve made in these forums before . there are many struggling mmos that dogmatically stick to the 15 dollar subscription fee and are failing to attract players . no where is it set in stone that an mmo monthly sub has to be that amount and most arnt worth it . but maybe they are worth 5 -10  and would attract more players if they offered more competative prices . as a consumber to keep argueing that all mmorpgs should maintain a 15 dollar subscription fee is a little like saying older or less popular solo  games should be sold at the same price as popular new ones . or that all newspapers and magazines should have the same cover price . it has always been a stupid arguement to say " i m happy with the 15 dollar " fee or " i d be more than happy to play x amount more " .

there are very very few games that are worth 15 dollars a month or can hold you for a long period at that price . thats why we only see the likes of world of warcraft being hugely successful and game like age of conan and warhammer failing to attract significant amounts of players . niether of which in my opinion are worth the standard fee but would be worth playing ( even for a few months now and again ) at a lesser fee .

a price war would benefit the mmo gamer in the long run and the mmo developers . i m sure a lot of people will argue against this saying quality would be sacrificed because of less revenue . but what if you cut you prices by a third and end up with twice as many players ? revenue increases . this may not work out  for every game of course but competition in the marketplace is what capitolism is all about and i know you americans hate communists .lol .

this is definatly the way forward . argue against it as much as you like but in the end of the day the mmo market will work like any other market and sooner or later it will become a reality .

i do agree the freemium model can end up being more expensive but it depends how you play it ( and i think a lot of us are now playing ddo that would never have looked at it before ).

i think this is a good article it addreses a lot of issue that need to be tackled .

Originally posted by metalhead980

It takes like three days to hit level cap in guild wars after that you still have main story arcs to finish, side quests, spells to acquire, dungeons and Group only zones to clear and wicked cool armor sets to collect.

If thats not enough you can also farm titles and turn the entire gameworld into a hardmode version of it self where 100% of the gameworld is useful to a maxx level player.

All this and the game has some really kick ass pvp

what is level cap i ve been playing a couple of days for about 2 hours a day and i m at level 6 ?

i guess you must mean 76  hours non stop play ? 

dont think that too bad a value myself given how cheap this game is now .

Originally posted by Frobner

BTW - the comback Campaing is ONLY for US players.  Not For EU players.  

Still I got the Mail from Mythic - just to find out that the link was to the US account system.  Not the EU accounts.

 

its bad is nt it i returned for the 10 days welcome back earlier in the year only to find my squig herder was deleted .never once with any other company has that happened before however long the break .

Originally posted by Wicoa

While I sit in a queue to a 10k+ limit server everynight yeh I think blizzard are doing well.

although not all servers are like that are they ? 

maybe this will boost things a bit . i went back for two weeks recently when they had thier welcome back offer available . the game had gone even more quiet than it was earlier in the year . i had a bit of fun questing in it but rarely came across anyone else so at least i was nt ganked every 5 minuites . i would nt be suprised to see it become totally free to play by the end of 2010 .

2010 looks to be an interersting year for mmo players . with several high profile games like star wars knights of the old republic and final fantasy schedualed for release as well as expansion pack for the likes of warcraft , age of conan and lord of the rings online . so who do you think will be the winners and losers next year ? also what do you think will happen to some of the struggling titles like warhammer ?

As we are fast approaching one year since Blizzard released any official subscription numbers I thought I would see what google news had to say about the subject given someone sent me a link suggesting subscription numbers had been maintained or increased , i found no such news articles . To me it seams logical if the numbers had stayed the same or increased Blizzard would have released a press statement . As no statement has been forthcoming and given subscriptions peek around the time when there is a expansion pack released what i think its presently happening is a lull in the numbers of subscribers . How big a lull that is no one really knows . and quoting x-fire , guiness and any number of dubious websites dont amount to any kind of proof . Unfortunatly the only people that can give us the real story are remaining silent and have done so for nearly a year now .

Originally posted by jcusanoiii

These are the things that really make wow good IMO.

-Classes-all the classes are fun to play and their all different. They have interesting mechanics such as the sheep and teleport for mage or pets for a warlock. You really want to keep leveling up to unlock your new abilities.

-Combat/feel-Some people might disagree with me but in wow the combat really feels good. You feel each of your spells hitting the target and it's fun to use all your abliities. The animations all look good to and its fun to watch the combat take place.

-PVE- The pve in wow is really the best out there. The scripted encounters are always fun and they did a good job of making it feel epic. Look at wows TOC compared to something like fire temple in Aion. TOC has an epic feel where your in an arena while Aion is a slow crawl through a dungeon where every mob is essentially the same.

-Vanity items- Things such as mounts and pets i think are really good ideas. There's so many mounts in wow and there all cool and make you want to collect them all.

I think what makes wow the best for me is it simply feels the best. I would say a game like warhammer has a bunch of mechanics i like such as pqs but there something about the feel of it that doesnt do it for me. The combat feels empty like i dont really feel myself hitting the target. Wow is the most fun game to actually control and play.

I d tend to agree warcraft is a great core game but its run by a company thats really milking it rather than care about the quality of gameplay .
 

Originally posted by Einherjar_LC

WoW was your first MMO wasn't it OP?

 

It didn't come along at any magical time, there were multitudes of MMO players online before WoW was even thought of.  Most of those would also run on generic equipment as well.

 

UO - you could practically run UO on your TRS-80

AC1 - if it had a processor, it would probably run AC1

EQ1 - could run on anything made within 3-5 years before the game went live

 

 

What you're experiencing is the downer effect after having left your first MMO and trying to recapture that "high" you found in your first MMO experience.  It is fleeting and hard to find, but can be done.  The first thing you have to do is turn off the expectations you bring with you from your first game.  It's harder to find a game when you're looking for this or that rather than just playing a game on it's own merits.

 

The MMO genre is anything but stale right now.  I, for the first time in a long time have hope for the direction of the MMO industry.  Some developers are starting to realize that copying WoW is not the way for success but carving your own niche is.  They realize WoW is the exception and not the rule.  There are new titles trying to break the mold of the "typical" MMO experience.  One is Fallen Earth by independent studio Icarus.  Post apoc MMORPG world with FPS combat.  Crafting is significant.  Skill based, not class based.  There is a good story line you can quest to or you can make your own way and totally ignore the quest line.

 

No my friend, I think the MMO genre are just starting to see the beginning of better times.

ultima online was my first mmo back in 2000 . although i only did play it for a few months . after that i tried everquest 1 but it did nt really grab me so i only played it a month . broadband only became widly available in the uk in 04-05 so started WoW at that point . loved it for the first couple of years but felt it went more and more downhill as time went on . in the last 18 months i was playing wow i tried most of the mmos that were available at that time .

the new star wars game might be interesting i guess . but so many of these company get it wrong and games that have potential dont realise it . i ve heard bad things about startrek online . dc universe is soe is nt it ? thier track record has  nt been great .personally i m hoping something like the elder scrolls gets the mmo treatment . i tend to agree a warcraft clone is nt the way to go . sooner or later one of these developers will get it right but they do need to realise when they mess up like ncsoft did with aion in its initial month they have to bite the bullet and offer free time untill they get it right as a good will gesture . ncsoft did nt do this and were way to slow to act which led to a negative view about the game with everyone i know that plays mmos .

once that happens its an uphill struggle and no matter how good the game its hard to get people back .

so much would need to change for it to be what it once was . i dont think the cataclysm will change whats fundamentely wrong with warcraft . for instance the recent change allowing players to have horde and alliance characters on the same server upset a lot of players . i would have supported it if it had been just for pve servers but i can imagine the abuse thats going on and threats when someone gets ganked now . the trouble is the things blizzard need to do to bring people back would mean upsetting all the kiddies that play now that have got used to the easy gameplay . its a shame really WoW is a game i would have kept playing for years but Blizzard made so many rotten choices chasing the quick buck it led a lot of players like me to leave . i m sure some people will point at xfire figures etc to say that Blizzard are still doing as well as ever out of WoW but given theres been no word on subscription numbers from Blizzard for over a year i draw the conclusion they must have gone down . whether that its just a lull or a long term trend we ll know after this xpac is released . if theres still official statement from Blizzard at that point then things cant be as good as they once were .

since quitting warcraft 18 months ago i ve tried most of the major mmos . i think as a genre theres a great future for mmos but at present we are seeing a bit of a lull in terms of  immersive games . i ve quite enjoyed age of conan but theres little to keep you interested in the endgame . lord of the rings has been my main game given i got a cheap lifetime sub to it . it has a nice community and its something i dip into for a few hours each week but its not something i want to rush through or spend long periods of time in . warhammer had potential but because of the scenario system it fell a little flat because it led to the game world feeling empty . aion looks nice but it had a really terrible release and ncsoft was nt quick enough on the ball to avoid the negativity that now generally surrounds the game to make it a great success . 

this leaves me about thinking about going back to wow but then i remember how awful and easy that game has become now and hardly resmebles the game i played for 3+ years . so i guess for me its going to be dipping into lotro now and gain because at present mmos dont offer that much . i think the whole genre is in a lull at the moment . wow managed to come along at a time when more and more people had home computing and access to the internet . it offered the right thing at the right time and was nt too heavy on the specs . it seams to me the whole genre is getting a little stale at the moment .

thats not to say it will remain so . as the technology improves these games will become more and more inovative and impressive . but the big question is when we are going to see the next leap forward . the chances are it wont be on the home computer at all but with some future console .another thing that may factor in its introduction of affordable 3d tech which will be with us sooner than we think .

i m betting the lull and the status quo wont last long but the next leap forward might be still a few years off .

for me wow started going downhill when they introduced faster leveling . after that it was a slippery slope . although other players will say it started earlier with changes to the battle grounds . the few players i still know who were playing gave up because of the allowing of both horde an alliance players on the same server . i guess at the end of the day its blizzards game they can do what they want with it but they would have kept a lot of long term players if they had nt made the changes they have . i personally dont think its reaped the rewards they wanted given theres been no official subscription numbers announced by them in nearly a year . to anyone with any sence that means one thing . the numbers hav nt stayed the same so they must have gone down .

well my two weeks are nearly up . its been an odd experiance . i ve spent most of the last two weeks questing and hardly been ganked at all . not because the people are any nicer but because there are so few of them . in fact it was rare to see another player in ymirs pass .  i got the feeling it was a game in sharp decline which is a shame because it does have some decent enough gameplay but i dont think it justifys a subsription fee or maybe the subscription fee they are asking now which in the uk is roughly 20 percent more than most other mmos . 

now and again i get the urge to stop by again but then i remember what i want to go back to is not a game that really exists anymore . the way blizzard took the game really took out the fun factor and challenge . also all the old friends i had there quit and the community is now abundant with either kids or players that act like them . if blizzard ever implimented either advanced servers that offered a bit more challenge or ones that offered the option of the orginal game experiance again i would return . but they wont . if theres a cataclysm free trial or welcome back offer i ll try it out . but i would nt rush out an buy it . the game looks far too dated now as well .

even though i enjoy the pve in lord of the rings as its the best i ve come across in an mmo i would like to see the pvp side of the game expanded on . moria is full of all sorts of nasty things in the book so a pvp area there would make sence as would instanced battles somewhere along the lines of a skirmish system . its part of the game i would like to expanded on because i do like to pit my wits against other people .

epic fail is the one i hate . normally used by people that are trying to defend the game they are in and troll another game without playing it .

as for a word rather than a phrase . noob . i mean everyones new to a game or an element of a game at some point and makes mistakes .

both are used by people with an immature attitude .

i ve not tried the skirmishes yet but i m looking forward to doing so this weekend . lord of the rings online just keeps getting better and better in my opinion . although i would like to see another pvp area or some expanding on that side of the game in the next boxed xpac . still the pve is the best around and so is the community .

Originally posted by 133794m3r

Originally posted by Amstrup

Ghowstcrawler stated LAST month that the wow sub was INCREASING.

 

So a guy who's job is to talk to the community wouldn't lie? Show me cold hard facts that it is INFACT increasing. WoW has reached it's peak. Cataclysm is a PERFECT title for their next expansion. WoW can either start gaining back the tons of people who have found it boring or they can die. The reason why they're revamping starter areas is b/c players like pretty and good animations. So by them revamping alot of the biggest areas in the main world. This is so that they can get more players. Now a player can supposedly just buy the original game and level to the top w/o ever having to go to Outland or Northrend. Or atleast that's how they were making it out to be. Truth be told, you'll still have to go out there but leveling's just going to get easier. And they'll have more end game content. It's only 5 levels. There's not much you can do with 5 levels so they're going to of course make those five levels seem entirely like end game content.

I'll believe that WoW has 11mil subs when they release their tax records to the public. Show me that and i'll believe them.

either that or when blizzard release thier official subscription numbers . which they hav nt done in nearly a year now . the subs hav nt gone up this year its pretty obvious they wont have been static so they most likly have gone down in numbers given theres been no xpax this year to boost them again . they ll proberbly pick up next year with cataclysm and around this christmas because WoW is so cheap to buy now its a good stocking filler for the kids . i ve actually brought a copy for my 12 year old neice . its a nice game for someone of her age . it ll proberbly never again be able to boast 12 million players again but even if it does nt its decline will be so slow that even in 10 years it ll  still be able to boast having a couple of million players .