Originally posted by ZombieKen

Years ago perception might have been two types of games, subscription or F2P junk.  As I see it, this has changed considerably with many high profile games either made for F2P or converted to it.  (note: as used in this sentence, F2P includes Freemium)

 

Rift's switch has me wondering what next.  Are we going to see a F2P market significantly dominated by a handful of titles?  And if so what will become of the less popular games?

 

It's getting pretty damned competitive, if you ask me.

 

I agree. Between the B2P titles and some of the recent F2P conversions, there's some fairly quality games that are going to dominate the non-sub market. I feel the games with the least restrictions will become the real money makers.

With so many former sub titles converting to B2P or F2P, the less popular and arguably lesser quality games will face some major challenges. They will have their niche audience, but I am willing to bet we will see more of these F2P titles shut down as larger companies enter into the F2P market.

To be perfectly honest, I would not at all be surprised to see WoW become B2P/F2P in the near future (next couple of years), especially if their sub numbers keeping falling at an alarming rate.

Originally posted by Mtibbs1989

Originally posted by Disatisfied9

Originally posted by Mtibbs1989

 What I truly miss from many MMO's that developers are completely ignoring today are "Hell levels" and attunements in character progression. I'd love to see players actually have to work at getting their characters progressed further into the game. What ever happened to these things?

They died, along with all the other stupid features of MMO's.

I'd prefer it if the only game with "hell levels" are those which are indie funded for an extremely niche audience. Let hell level supporters have their game, but not to ruin everyone else's.

 

There are however other designs that could encourage what you desire (a sense of achievement, elimination of EZ mode or increase of difficulty) without resorting to archaic features that make the majority of players lose out on FUN.

We all know how much "fun" a game is when you beat a new MMO in a week. 

 I also know that the MMO genre isn't niche anymore. Any kid and their parents play the game now and I most like won't see the  difficulty level in an MMO ever again.

Don't mistake leveling speed with difficulty. I haven't ever played a mmo where leveling was hard, but I have played many mmos where leveling was made artificially tedious. If content is challenging, that's great, but the content needs to be challenging intelligently. Such as, mobs who use CC and tactics to try to kill the player. However, if content is going to be "challenging" because you need 80 million xps to level and earn it at a rate of 200xps, and you and the mobs are playing whack-a-mole (which is what most "challenging" content has been in mmos), that's poor design.

More on topic:

Leveling systems exist because many gamers are goal oriented. Without something to readily measure their progress they will most likely become bored. Additionally, having some form of "end game" is important to many mmo gamers, just look at how much discussion exists pertaining to end game content. You don't need levels to have end game content, but how will you know when you reach end game in a leveless system? Simply put, the level system is the easiest way to design and gate content. Anyone who has ever been in any type of design class can tell you that the KISS method (keep it simple stupid) is pounded into you, because simple is often the best way to go. You can add layers to a simple structure after the fact.

AC2, LotRO and WAR are my choices.

AC2 was rushed out, mostly due to pressure from Microsoft, and was plagued with chat issues due to the GUN server. I would also say the game suffered from a true lack of identity as well. It wanted to be an open world mmo with interesting mechanics, but much of the open world wasn't worth exploring nor was it rewarding to do so. Instead we wound up in certain camping locations in the world or in olthoi hives.

LotRO suffered from uninspired combat more than anything else for me. Turbine had a great track record of making interesting combat from AC1 and AC2. However, combat felt completely bland to me in LotRO. Not to mention the game attempted to do the quest hub thing. Which it did well, since it had a ton of quests, but suffered from the generic kill 10 X that WoW already had a ton of. I would also say the game suffered from bland animations as well.

WAR is the game that should have been, but never came to pass. They tried something different with Public Quests, which were ok when populated, but promoted too much open world competition among those who are supposedly your allies. The PvP was ok, but again, it suffered from either a lack of people to kill or imbalanced populations. The game also had some pretty terrible class balancing, considering the end game was designed for RvR mechanics, that is unforgivable. However, you do have to tip your cap to some interesting class mechanics, especially for the healing classes, having to balance out DPS vs. Healing resources to get to most out of your experience.

Originally posted by rageagainst

Originally posted by Kaneth

If you didn't like how the game played at launch, then there isn't much of a reason for you to think you would enjoy it now. The basic mechanics of the game are exactly the same. Additional content has been added to the game, but if you didn't like the portion of the world you did experience, I'd doubt you'd like any of the newer additions.

Perhaps the game simply isn't your cup of tea. Nothing wrong with that, but no one else can really tell you how you will react to a game either.

Whose cup of tea was it then? It looks like solely ultra casual game. I played the game like a casual gamer and I was bored... it lacked any depth whatsoever...

Sorry for the late response, but I don't forum watch as much as I used to.

It's the cup of tea to the people playing the game. I personally play for WvW. I enjoy the three sided combat and the unpredictability it brings. Opportunities for a smaller force to take advantage of two larger forces being distracted by the heat of battle to claim a tower, keep, etc. There are others in my guild who do the world boss rotation every night, and those who run fractals and/or dungeons constantly, and those who love to explore the world and get 100% map completion on multiple characters. We have a wide variety of gamers within the confines of my guild. Additionally, the WvW community on my server is a good bunch. We celebrate our victories, laugh off our failures, and have a good spirit of cooperation. Simply put, I enjoy the game and many others do as well.

From the "feeling" of your post, I would imagine you're not normally a casual gamer. If you feel the need to change your gaming style to attempt to enjoy a game, then that game is probably not for you. I tried to get into LotRO when it first came out, and again when it went freemium. Both times I couldn't stand the combat. I didn't try to force myself to like it, I just accepted that the game wasn't for me, and moved on.

If you didn't like how the game played at launch, then there isn't much of a reason for you to think you would enjoy it now. The basic mechanics of the game are exactly the same. Additional content has been added to the game, but if you didn't like the portion of the world you did experience, I'd doubt you'd like any of the newer additions.

Perhaps the game simply isn't your cup of tea. Nothing wrong with that, but no one else can really tell you how you will react to a game either.

Originally posted by KhinRunite

Originally posted by bcbully

It's been awhile since I posted in this forum. Before the launch I railed against the hype. After launch I loved the game for 3 weeks.

 

Since then I've seen many columns dedicated to the progress of GW2. From the fringe I've read about dungeons, dailies,  WvW fixes. and mini-games.

 

To those still playing-

Do you feel that GW2 has broken away for the WoW formula? If so, it what ways?

 

Do you feel GW2 has become more like WoW? If so, in what ways?

1.) The game is still not gear-centric. There may be a shift in mechanics regarding Fractals, but the gear threadmill is isolated and contained only to those doing fractals. I am in no way restricted to entering any place because of my lack of gear.

2.) The game still has no hard trinity. Finding groups is still easy and I still don't have to give way to Tanks and Healers.

 

Overall still an awesome game.

I would say these two points pretty well sum things up. I'll also add that obtaining Exotics is a fairly easy process, considering that you can obtain exotics in whichever avenue you choose. Whether it be crafting, karma, trade post, wvw, dungeons. The only gear "progression" that exists in in Fractals with Agony Resistance, and again it pertains to just that portion of the game (like Khin said).

GW2 isn't perfect by any means, but I am finding the changes are nice and a break away from the norm.

You could argue that the number of Minecraft "units" sold is a good indicator that sandbox games are popular. The biggest factors holding back sandbox mmos could be broken down to two very general categories. First, whenever we get a sandbox style mmo, it also seems to be coupled with Free-for-all pvp, which is not a popular feature among the mmo crowd. Out the gate, the game is already niche. Secondly, there just doesn't seem to be very many developers who know what they are doing attempting to make sandbox games. There seems to have been very little polish on the vast majority of sandbox mmos.

EVE and UO have been exceptions to the norm, but then again, both games were made by developers who seemingly have much love for the games they created, and weren't looking for a quick buck.

In all honesty, sandbox style games are probably better suited to the realm of multiplayer gaming, rather than an mmo setting. Sandbox means a lot of things to a lot of people, and I think it's hard to find a general consensus of what sandbox can mean to everyone. Additionally, there's varying degrees of themepark elements that are accepted in sandbox games to some, but not all.

Minecraft, again, is a good example of this. A minecraft mmo probably wouldn't work. However, there are tons of private servers where those who populate them agree upon the rules of their server. Some people love FTB style mods and play on servers that are setup for FTB or allow mods, etc. However, you have a good number of folks who prefer the vanilla game and play on servers with those rules. Even in a singular game, minecraft, there is far too great of variation of preferred playstyles to really pin into a mmo setting.

Zones like Queensdale (human 1-15 zone) is typically well populated, depending on server of course. With downleveling, and daily achievements, lower level zones tend to be decently populated. You can pretty much count on help for events like Champion Troll, Champion Boar, Champion Wasp, plus things like the Shadow Behemoth. You will see a good mix of folks of many levels as well.

If you're wanting a more "solo" experience, you can always head off to the lesser popular areas and have events to yourself as well. The wife and I can always find nice out of the way events for us to duo when we just want some "us" time.

Structured PvP has to level requirements, you simply just go to Heart of the Mists and you will be level 80 with access to spvp gear. It's up to you to find a build and learn to play.

WvW you will find yourself upleveled to 80, but lack of unlocked skills and traits will put you at a disadvantage vs. level 80s. I tend to level my characters in WvW. I'll hop in there around level 20 or so, after I have all of my utility skill slots unlocked with exception to the elite skill slot. Move with the zerg and find the xps flow as you take camps, towers, keeps, kill pack dolyaks, players, sentries, etc.

In all aspects of world play, pve or wvw, you will earn loot and find various crafting materials. You also have various avenues to obtaining gear. Karma vendors, WvW exotics via badges and some coin,  crafting, running dungeons, doing fractals, you also earn laurels for completing daily achievements which can be used to purchase ascended jewelery. Additionally, if you're in a guild you can earn guild commendations doing guild events and you can purchase gear with that as well. You're basically limited to patience, and coin.

Honestly, the way GW2 is set up, it's easily one of the most newbie friendly mmos out there. The community as a whole seems to be pretty noob friendly in game as well.

Originally posted by Iselin

Originally posted by sapphen

Originally posted by Iselin

Originally posted by sapphen

Originally posted by tkreep

But its not from the creators of Elder Scrolls its from the creators of daoc.

TES is funding it, that's good enough for me.  I'm fine with Matt Firor's vision but I think it's wrong for TES.

Actually TES is not funding it. Zenimax Media is. And it's not from the creators of DAoC, it's from the company that owns the TES IP.

Zenimax Media, the parent compant of Bethesda (TES), id Software (Doom), Arkane Studios (Dishonored), and several other studios, created Zenimax Studios for the sole purpose of developing ESO...it's the one studio that shares the parent company's name...there's a clue in there somewhere.

They hired exactly who they wanted to hire--and if they hired Matt Firor for it and then, as some suppose, that Evil Matt ran off in his own direction and perverted the Betehsda franchise, Zenimax Media would  have to be the most naive and downright ignorant company in existence. One that despite 6 years of paying the development bills, had no clue what Matt was doing.

Alternatively, they knew exactly what they wanted to do with a TES MMO and hired the right guy to do it for them.

The IP is not in the public domain for individual TES fans to interpret it and expand on it in one of 10,000,000 ways. The owners decided how they wanted to do it. You can like it or not...buy it or not... play it a little or play it a lot... that's the choice you, the consumer, gets to make.

Zenimax Media makes money from TES franchise = TES funded ESO impo.

...and what's all these extra words for, did you miss me or something?  I thought we was beyond this fickle stuff.  We have no idea what went on behind the doors at Zenimax, as far as we know Matt Firor was their 2nd or 3rd choice.

That last paragraph it sounds like you're telling me that I'm not allowed to have an opinion on ESO because I don't own the rights to the IP (am I understanding this correctly?).  You should know me better than that Isy, critiquing someone's opinion is about as productive as cleaning sand off a beach.

It's cool if you, Matt Firor and everyone else at Zenimax doesn't agree with me but it's still my opinion.

You can have an opinion but it's worth about this much (picture my thumb and forefinger touching each other.)

The game is being made as it is... play it or don't: no one is forcing you to do anything.

The only thing worth discussing is how this MMO plays as an MMO. The pointless part is the "This is like TES/No it isn't" constant blather.

I can agree with the sentiments of the last statement here. It's now pointless to bicker on whether Zenimax is doing the TES series justice. What we should be doing is discussing the features that have been presented to us and attempt to find value on the game based on the merits of the game itself, and not the IP it represents.

People are always hesitant to change, and like to do things the way "they've always been done". However, if we just kept doing the same thing we always have, there would never be any changes or innovations. I am a long time fan of TES, I love each iteration of the game, and there are plenty of things I find frustrating over each iteration of the game as well. However, I am also not one to completely disregard an upcomming game because it didn't match what I felt might be a good idea for a TES mmo. I will take the information presented from ZO and see if it seems like a game I would want to play. If it is, then great, if not, oh well.

You are either going to like the game, or you won't. You may not like the direction the game is going in mmo form, and everyone has a right to their opinion. People just seem to forget what they might find "dumb" or "boring" others will find "fun" and "exciting". These bickering threads have no value other than to create harsh feelings among those within the community.

The world of Secret of Mana and/or Chrono Trigger would make for interesting mmos. For Secret of Mana, you could set it during the time of the War of Mana 15 years prior to the SNES version. Multiple weapons and magic skills that you would have to level up, like in the SNES version.

Chrono Trigger itself would be a hell of an accomplishment in a mmo space. You would have to have the time travel element present, so you're making a world for Pre-Historic, Kingdom of Zeal, Dark Ages, "Present Age", and then the Future. Not to mention you could probably make an "End of Time" zone that could be like a personal housing instance of sorts. Along with all of the ages, you'd have to create appropriate creatures and content for the time period. You could even go as far as adding a "new game+" feature in place of a leveling system. Where completing certain tasks, achievements, story elements, etc would then allow you to unlock a new tier of powers for your character. At that point you could choose to continue your original character, or perhaps make a new character with the stats you've unlocked, but perhaps with new race/class options after completing certain time period tasks. Then you could play as Tribal People, Magic Race of Zeal, Robot, Modern Human, and possibly even add some monster races.

The gameplay of Fable was far too simplistic, but I found the setting to be wonderful, especially with how many steampunk elements exist.

My biggest gripe of all of the games was how linear the story was, and how non-open world the games themselves were. Yes, there was plenty of hidden things to find, but the world needed to be more open for us to explore (the games too for that matter).

I would be extremely cautious of a Fable MMO, especially considering how simplistic the controls were in addition to how limited the world truly was. If they took the setting and opened the world up, and add more depth to the combat system while remaining true to the weapon swapping, magic combo elements that were present.

Instead of a MMO, I would proably prefer to see a more open world single player installment with multiplayer options present.

Originally posted by xKopogerox

Originally posted by Vidir

Originally posted by xKopogerox

Fact is the market today is saturated with average at best multiplayers, thus making the audience scattered through many different MMO's due to uncertanty and lack of one clear and better choice. WOW was that choice until last few years and that's not longer the case, which of course has its pros and cons.

Guild Wars 2 I believe had something going, but for me it wasn't enough to commit to a purchase despite the massive hype I remember this site had for it. If you look at the current hype for all upcoming MMO's you'll notice one clear picture, it will be more of the same at least until the end of the year.

Last multiplayer I played was just to pass and kill the time until something bright comes on the horizon, but it will be longer than I hoped it will, therefore this poll fits perfectly to help the community deal with the current crisis.

So how are you handling the crisis?

For me if I do get involved with something from what's avaliable at the moment it must be free. I know I won't be committed to it and the ideas, executions, and the direction of todays MMO's do not cater to my preferences. Path of Exile was the best example of a short lasting MMO that helped me shell out a month or two. Then I had to do other things like catch up on TV series, and rarely, casually try some singleplayers, which these days do not appeal to me much.

As a someone who's been playing hardcore over the years, I must admit it's been an interesting change of pace and I'm curious to see how others are handling these MMO crysis as well.

If all is certain is the fact that at the end happiness does not depend on knowledge and I believe still a significant portion of the younger audience is enjoying many MMO's out there right now. I know this because when I was 6-7 years old and new to gaming I played virtually everything with passion and over and over. Games at the arcade, and most NES, SNES and PSX console games that were coming out last decades were my best childhood I could ask for.

I'm not that person anymore. I'm not 7-8 years old for better or worse, but I can still picture myself having a blast playing a game just like back in the days. If I had a choice between playing many of the F2P multiplayers today or paying $30-50 monthly for a next generation,  massive, virtual mutliplayer world developed by a far larger team with far more features, complexity and overall depth and maturity behind it.

Companies and developers I believe should aknowledge that what's good sells and what's not, not so much. There are guilds merging to overcome bigger challenges, there are teams working together and I believe that's whats lacking the most in todays gaming industry. Companies not working together, not wanting to deliver something bigger in the picture than what's already avaliable and without big risks, there won't be big rewards, not for companies or players like me.

I admit, I'm probably minority, but I do believe one day I want to be part of a game so complex and massive that when mentioned most wont look down upon or consider just a "childs game" or "not good enough for the multi millionaires irl.

The sad truth is how we do have the technology today to deliver such pruduct, but the product is still missing. At the end I don't want to know that I was born 50-100 years earlier to miss on such epic game. I know one thing for sure thu, whoever will be behind it, designing that game will require massive love toward gaming, commitment and understanding.

You can't have a guy who chosed other things over gaming to be behind the development such game. You can't have a guy who put other things 1st like $ and family. It must be someone who's played most games out there over the last decades and not just played, but played like a champion.

  

 

 There are no crisis.

Things are changing thats all.Players dont want to be looking for groups all day long. You kill the dragon by yourself or with a friend. No more 6 houre forced raids 4 days every week if you want to get decent loot. Good gear is not anymore made for raiders only,that is good.

 

So far only 21% are happy with their MMO and 47% are not playing anything. Looks like crisis to me. I have yet to hear from someone yet to actually share to the community how they handling the crisis, which was the point of this thread. Oh and beside watching TV series, I'm also very happy that the NBA playoffs are about to begin.

I really loved Game of Thrones, The Vampire Diaries and Once Upon a Time. Arrow afterwards was the best TV show I could ask for and now I'm near the end of season 3 of the Walking Dead, another great TV show. I also enjoy watching Anger Management and Two and a Half Men still and of course Family Guy. It would be nice if anyone else can add anything else that I could be missing :) Oh and yea I did watch some of the new Sherlock Holmes series as well as the new Hannibal series, which are good as well.

 

It still doesn't prove a crisis, it just shows the percentage of the miniscule amount of people who are reading this thread opinion. Additionally, the title of the thread alone will cause a certain group to come and post their negative results as well as make a certain group completely ignore the thread outright. However, arguing those points is basically an argument in semantics, as it doesn't really get us anywhere.

I personally don't feel there is a crisis. I am happily engaged in GW2 with a large guild who participates in all aspects of the game equally and plays to the games fullest potential. GW2 isn't a perfect game by any means, but then what is the perfect game?

Where your perception of a crisis might come from is that the mmo genre is in a weird point of change and stagnation. This also happened right before WoW came out in 2004. At that point, nearly every mmo was based around grouping only mechanics, and standing around attempting to form groups for hours was the norm. WoW came out and changed how we looked at the genre, and how developers looked at the genre. Now we're at a point where soloability is king almost to the exclusion of grouping mechanics. You have gaming populations that consist of soloers or small groupers who don't really feel the need to be part of a group. In other words, we've gone from one extreme to another. GW2 made some small steps with the ad hoc grouping mechanics where you can just be around others and the game thinks of you in a group of sorts. Then we have games on the horizon like ESO that seem to be following a similar path as GW2, but keeping more of the classic mmo mechanics as well. Then we have games like Wildstar which are seemingly attempting to create a more vanilla WoW style game, but updated for todays market. Not to mention the numerous kickstarter games that are in development which are trying some interesting things as well.

What we are waiting on is the next "WoW", a game that makes enough changes for the game to be different, but not so many changes as to make the game unrecognizable. It's quite possible that the mmo genre will go into a period of severe stagnation before the next big change comes on a regular basis. It's happened at least twice now in the short period that graphical MUDs (mmos) have been in existence. We will most likely have the next "big game" come out soon enough, and probably from an unlikely source, and the genre will make a shift, and a few years down the line, we will be having a similar discussion.

Originally posted by Horusra
I look at WoW vs EQ2 when they came out.  EQ2 tanked while WoW became a giant and I personally think the hardware requirements are partially the reason why that happened. 

I agree. Everquest had a name and a fanbase, much like Blizzard. The main difference was that Blizzard did not have previous mmo experience, on paper, EQ2 should have been the clear winner. Blizzard has always attempted to allow as many people to play their games as possible, and while not every single game has been a gem, every single game has sold very well.

A game is more than the graphics behind it, yes awesome graphics are a bonus, but not at the cost of gameplay. It's been fairly rare that a high spec game has also had deep and rich features behind it. For me, Minecraft will always be the ultimate example of how little graphics truly mean when you have near limitless potential in gameplay. Minecraft literally went from a small idea to this mega successful game that has sold millions of units spanning PC, Xbox 360, and iOS/Android. Again, not everyone likes Minecraft, but it has proven to be successful enough to make it an important game and a good example for other indie developers.

Originally posted by tintilinic

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Exactly the problem with GW2

 

They set to remove everything bad and annoying things about MMO.

But forgot that all those bad and annoying things are part of the what makes a MMO.

 

What you got is a very fun, albeit shallow game that is NOT MMO.

Except this , and go back having fun.

 

Or install Age of  Wushu, EVE

Or TERA...even Vanguard.

 

Not everyone is a masochist and want to subject himslef to countless hours of annoyances and "bad parts" of the game for some promise of fun that never actually comes, just more and more annoyances and bad parts.

And redefining "deep" as "annoying and bad"...just lol

Yes, GW2 is guilty of being very fun...guess not everyones cup of tea :)

I agree. What many people define as "deep" mechanics, are simply poor mechanics made to be more complicated than they need to be, for the sake of being overly complicated. Making statements that GW2 isn't a mmo also shows a large amount of ignorance as well.

The misconception that GW2 is shallow is most likely attributed to a couple of factors. First, it doesn't seem that many people can wrap their heads around a loose trinity system. The majority seem to enjoy roles being defined and having your gameplay limited to a certain amount of choices. These limited roles are often considered "deep", because then with the clear and defined role, people can delve into learning the mechanics behind that specific role. Secondly, GW2 isn't well balanced when it comes to builds quite yet. The game has been out around 8 months, so it's not surprising that this is an issue, but it's a real issue that needs to be addressed. Many weapons for the various professions are simply not very good choices, and the weapons that are good choices very often blow anything else out of the water. Additionally, the utility skills and many elite skills are a little too specific for their uses.

GW2 suffers a bit in a similar area where I felt DCUO suffered. The weapons have a large emphasis placed upon them. The majority of your damage and abilities come directly from your weapon choices. However, the utility skills (or powers in DCUO), only seem to act as a compliment to the weapons or are temporary boosts to your character in general. Again, many of the utility skills in GW2 aren't very good selections in a general sense, but the ones that are, blow the competition out of the water.

I feel that if the weapon and utility skill selections in GW2 were a bit more equal, we would see more depth added in terms of working builds. Additionally, I feel they need to rework the utility slots a bit as well. Add more interesting choices to make those decisions more difficult.

Originally posted by Bossalinie

Originally posted by Anubzara

Ya you are right it was a bit of a rage post and i do apologize. It's just disappointing seeing all these people and how they respond. When you look at it from both sides with a level head, you can see how the feature is just being created for a niche and some are disappointed that without effort, they will not be able to benefit from it.

I'll try to keep the walls of text to a minimum but i'll pass on the "lurking" haha. My post had constructive criticism and i stated i'm open to other peoples views. While it may have been a rage, it can help to clarify to those who so pigheadedly oppose 40 man raids for no other reason than the fact that they won't be able to do the content.

Branifus

Well, I voted no, and not because I didn't want them in the game; that's not what the questions asked. I don't mind them being implemented at all, I just wont participate in them. I sacrificed a lot to participate in 40 man raids, even more to run them. The victories did not outweigh the frustrations and maintenance of bad strategies, bad players, and and other out-of-game IRL barriers. What started out as an adventure became a mindless chore. Nothing was worse than wanting to hang up the raiding but not doing so because your crew needed you. I was trapped by my own kindness. 

I love hard content. I go all in brutal mode any game I play. 40 man raids was a different animal, though. I refuse to call it hard because of wiping when two more people were idiots. I refuse to call it hard when we defeat a boss that we wiped on for months, not because we changed the strategy, but because we rerran the instance to gear over and over to that point to get people the proper gear. Raidings requires unwavering dedication to game, or hobby if people want to call it that, that I jus't can't afford to offer it for the satisfaction it returns to me.

It's not all about seeing content or easy handouts. 

Couldn't agree more. The sacrifice is most often not worth the reward when it comes to organized 40 man raiding. Large group raiding is similar to trying to herd cats. It's difficult to get everyone on the same page, and even more difficult to keep those people interested through wipes. I have a lot of respect for those who have the patience to run a successful 40 man raiding program. I prefer a more intimate atmosphere when I am doing organized events in a game. Running with 5-10 guildmates where you can stay organized more easily, but also can have a nice conversation with. Often times I have found that larger group content becomes far too chaotic to allow just idle chit chat.

If a game wants to have options for large group organized content, that is perfectly fine, but I also don't believe that the end-all-be-all gear should come exclusively from that content. Scaling difficulty is a newish feature to mmos, but it's something that needs to be promoted. All levels of organized content needs to be rewarding as well. If a developer caters to just one group of people, they tend to leave others out in the cold, and that is something I won't tolerate from a mmo company anymore.

I have to disagree with the OP. Population imbalances in two faction play are not only more common, but have more severe consequences.

When I played DAoC, Albion clearly had the highest population on my server. However, Hibernia and Midgard weren't too far behind. At the same time, Hibernia and Midgard produced better tactics than just zerging because those realms had to deal with lesser populations. It was also pretty common for Mid and Hib to team up when Alb had superior numbers to both armies. This created a more dynamic battlefield environment, and created more opportunities for better tactics to overcome sheer numbers.

When I played WoW (quit about a month ago now). My server had a 1.5 to 1 Alliance to Horde ratio for the majority of my time there. For areas such as Wintergrasp or Tol Barad, the alliance's ability to put more numbers into the battlefield guaranteed victory nearly every time. The battlefield was less dynamic, simply because Alliance always had superior numbers. There were numerous servers where population imbalances for Alliance or Horde were 2:1 or greater. A third faction in WoW would have spread the population out more, and the more severe population imbalances probably would not have so readily happened.

As far as GW2 goes. I would say the three server system in WvW works well, but an extended period of free transfers (which should have ended after a week or two) is what screwed things up more. There was a ton of server hopping going on that really skewed the population numbers. Additionally, not having Oceanic Servers separate from NA servers is problematic as well. Some servers have large guilds from NA and Oceanic regions, which means they have a large force available 24 hours per day, and that works well when those servers are matched up. However, not all servers have large WvW guilds running. My server, Isles of Janthir, seems to be more of an Oceanic server (lots of Aussies), so our WvW force is more active during non-NA peak times. We do well during the day or very late at night, however, when NA peak time rolls around, the Aussies are in non-peak hours, and we don't seem to have many NA WvW guilds, so all the work we did during the day is negated at night, and the servers we are match up against seem to have a decent force 24 hours per day. We've had the same matchup for about a month now. As servers keep losing the three way matchups, more guilds up and move to greener pastures, which only makes the problem worse. So, it's not the 3 faction system that failed GW2's WvW, it's more of an issue of population imbalances of play times and population numbers. If it was a two server matchup, servers with 24 hour forces would completely dominate servers without. If anything, ANet needs to create incentives for guilds to spread out more, and create more balanced server populations.

Originally posted by free2play

Originally posted by Kaneth

The mmo genre is moving away from subscription models, and that is pretty evident. B2P and F2P models are becoming the norm, and numerous interviews with industry big names even comment how the genre is moving away from sub models. Yes, sub based games give discounts for multi-month subscription packages, but given how many of the games even with those discount packages have gone F2P or B2P, shows that's not even enough to keep gamers interested.

The model that seems to be working, at the moment, across gaming as a whole is DLC packages and Cash Shops. It's pretty common for a $60 game to have another $60+ of added content over the course of the game's lifespan. The DLC packages are often smaller amounts of optional content, but gamers can pick and choose what content they wish to pay for. Additionally, the more fluff that seems to be in the store, seemingly the more people are willing to throw cash at it.

That's the newer financial hook for gaming. Contractual subscription models are something that probably would have worked 5+ years ago, but now, not a chance. If a game company creates a game backed by quality, they will make money, plain and simple. Anyone else who feels the need to try some gimmick models, knows their game is utter shit and is attempting a cash grab (STO anyone?).

And if you follow free model MMO's once they go free the only thing that gets developed are the cash shops. I didn't say MMO's are heading in a direction of long term subscription promotion, I said they should. It's called stable funding and it's what an MMO needs to plot development cycles. I offered a suggestion. For some reason you didn't agree with it. That's ok. You don't need to.

I still think any MMO that intends to be more than a fad needs a stable finance plan and that requires stable, paid subscriptions. Keep monthly for casual people, keep a try before you buy or 'free' option but any MMO that has any intention of actually developing and polishing should be promoting its subscription. "They all went free to play". Banks were handing out loans to unemployed people 5 years ago too. Look how that worked out. The current cash shop model is not sustainable. Most people see it as a scam and most people never spend a dime.

First, the highlighted portion: You have absolutely no way to prove any of that conjecture. Look at the original Guild Wars, never had a subscription fee and thrived over the course of the past decade. All of the funding of that game was driven by campaign/expansion releases and their cash shop. Secondly, look at the Blizzard Pet Store. How many pets and mounts has Blizzard sold over the years? They raised $1.9 million for the Japanese Disaster Relief selling Cenarion Hatchlings. Additionally, Turbine reported increased earnings once they added cash shops to DDO and LotRO. I would say those examples show how much of a market there is for cash shops. People view pay 2 win cash shops as scams, but many cash shops in AAA mmos are either account services (character renames, server transfers) or are fluff items (collectible pets, mounts, armor skins). Those types of cash shops seemingly make the developer a fair amount of income.

If you need further examples, just look at FPS games. No sub fees, had development after release, and still made profits off box sales and DLC packs.

Finally, a steady flow of subcription dollars isn't even a guarantee that developers can produce better and bigger content faster. If you need an example of that, just look at World of Warcraft. Patch 3.3 in Wrath was released December 2009 while Cataclysm released December 2010, granted Ruby Sanctum was released but that was a single boss dungeon. Then we get the Cata final patch November 2011 with MoP releasing 10 months later with no additional content patches inbetween.

So you are looking at 22 months of major content gaps within the recent history of WoW, and to top it off, you had to pay minimally $40 to access new content with the release of two different expansion packs at the end of those content gaps. Do you feel that players felt like those content gaps were worth the $330 of subscription fees during that time? Considering the massive drop in sub numbers over the course of the Cataclysm expansion, the answer would be no.

A quality mmo doesn't need subscription dollars to maintain "stable funding". A quality mmo will sell boxes for numerous months without having to cut the price. If that same quality mmo has a fluff filled cash shop of random crap that no one needs, it will make enough money off that cash shop to help further fuel game development until the release of the next expansion with a box sale cash infusion.