Personally I would stop playing if it went F2P, as would many of the gamers I know. I hate the whole cash shop and paid content scheme and the arrogant little chavs it attracts. People who havent invested into a game through either extensive time and effort or through a monthly sub seem to be less interested in maintaining a good public profile, e.g not acting like asshats or ninja's.
It used to be that if someone acted like a large majority do nowadays they would quickly be guildless and barred from all decent groups/raids.
Originally posted by Athcear I think we're getting to the point where it's silly to release a new MMO as purely subscription based.
We've come to the point where it's silly to release a subscription based WoWclone/themepark game that focuses on solo content.
MMOs that rely on play oriented content and community still seem to do well without FTP. Reducing the upfront cost is smart though. But big publishers like Funcom try to get as much money out of hype and box sales before their game sinks.
Personally I would stop playing if it went F2P, as would many of the gamers I know. I hate the whole cash shop and paid content scheme and the arrogant little chavs it attracts. People who havent invested into a game through either extensive time and effort or through a monthly sub seem to be less interested in maintaining a good public profile, e.g not acting like asshats or ninja's.
It used to be that if someone acted like a large majority do nowadays they would quickly be guildless and barred from all decent groups/raids.
I hate the community that comes with F2P. I would definately run for the door if it happened.
Originally posted by BarCrow So..whats to keep publishers (or whoever) from making "arrangements" with metacritic to report just shy of a bonus enducing score..leaving developers stiffed of deserved revenue (in the form of earned bonuses) and the extra cash in the kept in the pockets of those less deserving?
Not a thing, reviewers get payed off all the time. Just look at the AoC and SWTOR scores.
I get what you're saying but I'm talking about a publisher or producer or whatever ,conspiring with metacritic to short change the developer on any bonuses...thus keeping the extra cash for themselves. Oh well...its just conspiracy theory right now...just wondering if that happens.
If you build a game from scratch AROUND the concept of a "Cash Shop" then you can go the 'Free'-To-Play route because then you're never considered a failure like SWTOR, but you're also not a good product.
I've NEVER played a "F2P" product that was developed around the idea of "F2P" from the start that was worth a single dime. The only playable "F2P" titles out now were actually P2P failures that went F2P to keep from closing down, and they're the only "F2P" titles out now that are half-playable.
This part is actually quite true. Most of those cash shop based games are centered around getting you to buy stuff from the cash shop. Games like Allods Online or Runes of Magic require huge investments in the cash shop later on. But games that sell content in pieces, like Wizard 101, are far better. The pay to play games that have gone freemium are still the better games. As yet, designing a good game and marketing it via microtransactions is still a difficult goal to reach. There are few good examples. League of Legends and Wizard 101 are the only ones that come to mind. They basically just have to make a solid game, and gate certain types of content. Instead of buying access in blocks of time, you buy portions of the game. Shallow grinder games, whether they are sub based or centered on microtransactions, will always suck. And games that exist to exploit a payment model will also always suck.
Important facts: 1. Free to Play games are poorly made. 2. Casuals are not all idiots, but idiots call themselves casuals. 3. Great solo and group content are not mutually exclusive, but they suffer when one is shoved into the mold of the other. The same is true of PvP and PvE. 4. Community is more important than you think.
I too hate the F2P moniker, micro transactions works much better.
One of the problems is that even if you like the game, once you run through the 'main bit' there is not much to warrant paying a monthly sub IMHO.
This is the problem that comes up if you shoe horn a payment model meant for MMORPGs into games like TSW that are more like singleplayer games that have a solo oriented "main part" to burn through.
Subs worked when MMOs created communities, and had to pay for big servers to host everyone in the same area. Not so much now in the linear instanced solo "MM"ORPG genre.
Originally posted by BarCrow So..whats to keep publishers (or whoever) from making "arrangements" with metacritic to report just shy of a bonus enducing score..leaving developers stiffed of deserved revenue (in the form of earned bonuses) and the extra cash in the kept in the pockets of those less deserving?
Not a thing, reviewers get payed off all the time. Just look at the AoC and SWTOR scores.
I get what you're saying but I'm talking about a publisher or producer or whatever ,conspiring with metacritic to short change the developer on any bonuses...thus keeping the extra cash for themselves. Oh well...its just conspiracy theory right now...just wondering if that happens.
It does, all the time. I've even heard of companies such as Activision paying Metacritic to give their competitors high reviews for poor products thereby generating a massive amount of hype that will inevitably crush their competitor's product into an unrecoverable sinkhole.
That's at least what I've been told by "Metacritic Insiders", but i'm of the opinion they might just be internet "Attention" seekers emailing me this stuff .
Although, the information I got from the same individuals suggests that EA-Bioware was going to pay all of the major review sites for glowing reviews based on user generated traffic on those reviews before the reviews were even up. Given all the 9stars and critics defending their scores for SWTOR I can only guess there might be some truth here?
Dunno, ~~~/goes back to work
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity: Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
I'm so tired of hearing people wishing that a game will fail.. they don't even take into consideration what they're asking for. They're asking for hundreds of employees to lose their jobs and ability to provide for their families.. simply because they don't "like" the game or have some deep set grudge against the company because of a game you played 5 years ago.
If you don't like a game, state your reasoning and move on.. don't spend your time bashing the game and wishing for failure. It doesn't help the industry at all.
MMO developers have to be some of the most selfless people on the planet to work such long hours for very average pay to make a game that so many people end up hating, wishing for the failure or of wishing personal bodily harm to those who work on it.
It's sad to read so much, especially on this site.. especially in an industry where something "new" is rare. Everyone wants a company to try something different and then hope for their failure at the same time.
This site needs to start doing a better job at moderating its community. Most of the times its a band wagon mentlity of trashing a game for lolz.
Trashing a game because it's a bad game.
We hope for games to fail so that there's a positive change in the industry. Those developers will ultimately be the ones to suffer either way, so long as publishers that don't know what they're doing are dictating what the devs are making.
When I first came to this site I was like..this is amazing...now I can find a new MMO. Started reading the reviews...not bad......read the user comments and was......is any game worth playing? For the first few months I had the impression that 99%of the games listed on this site were trash. I thought this was strange and tried the games that interested me.
Now I think that 99% of the user comments are trash.
I'm so tired of hearing people wishing that a game will fail.. they don't even take into consideration what they're asking for. They're asking for hundreds of employees to lose their jobs and ability to provide for their families.. simply because they don't "like" the game or have some deep set grudge against the company because of a game you played 5 years ago.
If you don't like a game, state your reasoning and move on.. don't spend your time bashing the game and wishing for failure. It doesn't help the industry at all.
MMO developers have to be some of the most selfless people on the planet to work such long hours for very average pay to make a game that so many people end up hating, wishing for the failure or of wishing personal bodily harm to those who work on it.
It's sad to read so much, especially on this site.. especially in an industry where something "new" is rare. Everyone wants a company to try something different and then hope for their failure at the same time.
This site needs to start doing a better job at moderating its community. Most of the times its a band wagon mentlity of trashing a game for lolz.
Trashing a game because it's a bad game.
We hope for games to fail so that there's a positive change in the industry. Those developers will ultimately be the ones to suffer either way, so long as publishers that don't know what they're doing are dictating what the devs are making.
When I first came to this site I was like..this is amazing...now I can find a new MMO. Started reading the reviews...not bad......read the user comments and was......is any game worth playing? For the first few months I had the impression that 99%of the games listed on this site were trash. I thought this was strange and tried the games that interested me.
Now I think that 99% of the user comments are trash.
You're coming from a point of ignorance. What you deem as "trash" comments are usually made by Veteran MMORPG players who judge modern MMOs by the same standards as old MMOs. And compared to old MMOs, modern MMOs are SEVERELY lacking in the features that make an MMO an MMO. Most are shallow, uninspired, generic, and boring. But to someone new to the genre, they may be enticed for a time.
Originally posted by Kuppa The aricle was OK. But I could not stand your f2p rant, I just don't agree with it. You basically made the f2p transition look like the greatest evil that could happen to a game.
Traditionally F2P is lower quality and for those that get into the game, end up paying more for an MMO. I present exhibit A) Allods Online.
Also, I just don't agree with you. He didn't say all F2P models do that, he said there was a potential for that to happen - thanks to investor pressure. And he's right.
You're coming from a point of ignorance. What you deem as "trash" comments are usually made by Veteran MMORPG players who judge modern MMOs by the same standards as old MMOs. And compared to old MMOs, modern MMOs are SEVERELY lacking in the features that make an MMO an MMO. Most are shallow, uninspired, generic, and boring. But to someone new to the genre, they may be enticed for a time.
And you coming from a point of jaded elitism honestly. When you trash a game or pile on - you are affecting other peoples' lives. The problem for me isn't when a game deserves it, but can you honestly say that TSW deserves to cease to exist, as well as the company that made it. Has Funcom done such a horrible job that everyone should lose their jobs? Only one game got me to that point, FF14. And people were fired and Square Enix is fixing it now. Will I go back? No I won't. Will I wish for the demise of FF14 or Square Enix because of it? Nope. I wish them well. TSW problems has more to do with Funcom and Age of Conan, than anything else. The journalists couldn't let it go and fans burned from before couldn't either.
I'm so tired of hearing people wishing that a game will fail.. they don't even take into consideration what they're asking for. They're asking for hundreds of employees to lose their jobs and ability to provide for their families.. simply because they don't "like" the game or have some deep set grudge against the company because of a game you played 5 years ago.
If you don't like a game, state your reasoning and move on.. don't spend your time bashing the game and wishing for failure. It doesn't help the industry at all.
MMO developers have to be some of the most selfless people on the planet to work such long hours for very average pay to make a game that so many people end up hating, wishing for the failure or of wishing personal bodily harm to those who work on it.
-1 Sorry I gotta disagree with this, I think its you that might not see the big picture. Your 'emotional appeal' aside, there are some very very good reasons why some companies going away would be to the benefit of everyone and to the genre as a whole. It is not an all or nothing thing of course, it depends entirely on the qualities of the companies and the games they make. But if a company is bad, puts out poor quality products, treats its customers poorly and participates in shady business practices... why exactly does it deserve to keep doing business? Just because 'people' are employed there? Just because there is some minority of fans that like it? More damage is being done by keeping them in business. I don't wish death or pain on anyone, I would be surprised if anyone did, but I certainly don't want companies like that in business.
Now, I post rarely on the TSW forums, because I wasn't foolish enough to buy it after I didn't enjoy the trial. I was however foolish enough to buy Funcoms previous mmos Anarchy Online and Age of Conan and I was active in those forums. Their previous titles were released in poor working condition, without features the devs themselves claimed were in and fully working. People who brought attention to these problems were silenced by funcom and its fans. Myself and many others were overcharged on our credit cards ahead of the billing date (thank god for chargebacks, nice try FC). The devs shamelessly told players to go out and rate their games a 10 on various review sites to pump up their ratings. They put all their effort into polishing the entry areas of the game to trick players into getting those initial subscriptions and then leave everything mid-late game to post launch updates. They blow lots of money on advertising for the same reason. I could go on but I won't.
So.. why should a company that lies, steals, and goes about their business this way a good thing for the industry? The fact is its not.. its only good for Funcom. But don't worry, I won't be hanging around the forums to drill that concept into people that still don't get it, that company has wasted enough of my time.
Waiting for: A skill-based MMO with Freedom and Consequence. Woe to thee, the pierce-ed.
First and last time I will buy a lifetime sub for a game. Lesson learned.
Stick with it. New issues each month means for a few days/weeks you can check in and see something new for the game. Trust me. It's not going anywhere. Just play and have fun when you can, knowing that you bought the lifetime for a reason and that reason is still there and being improved upon.
good point also the players comments are bad sometimes (just because they are haters)!!!
same happent to me with Diablo 3 i read many comments that saying is bad but today i tried free trial and i said DO NOT READ COMMENTS FROM IDIOTS ANYMORE!!!! If i like it i play it and the opinion of others is ZERO!!!! Now i have to buy D3
I'm so tired of hearing people wishing that a game will fail.. they don't even take into consideration what they're asking for. They're asking for hundreds of employees to lose their jobs and ability to provide for their families.. simply because they don't "like" the game or have some deep set grudge against the company because of a game you played 5 years ago.
If you don't like a game, state your reasoning and move on.. don't spend your time bashing the game and wishing for failure. It doesn't help the industry at all.
MMO developers have to be some of the most selfless people on the planet to work such long hours for very average pay to make a game that so many people end up hating, wishing for the failure or of wishing personal bodily harm to those who work on it.
-1 Sorry I gotta disagree with this, I think its you that might not see the big picture. Your 'emotional appeal' aside, there are some very very good reasons why some companies going away would be to the benefit of everyone and to the genre as a whole. It is not an all or nothing thing of course, it depends entirely on the qualities of the companies and the games they make. But if a company is bad, puts out poor quality products, treats its customers poorly and participates in shady business practices... why exactly does it deserve to keep doing business? Just because 'people' are employed there? Just because there is some minority of fans that like it? More damage is being done by keeping them in business. I don't wish death or pain on anyone, I would be surprised if anyone did, but I certainly don't want companies like that in business.
Now, I post rarely on the TSW forums, because I wasn't foolish enough to buy it after I didn't enjoy the trial. I was however foolish enough to buy Funcoms previous mmos Anarchy Online and Age of Conan and I was active in those forums. Their previous titles were released in poor working condition, without features the devs themselves claimed were in and fully working. People who brought attention to these problems were silenced by funcom and its fans. Myself and many others were overcharged on our credit cards ahead of the billing date (thank god for chargebacks, nice try FC). The devs shamelessly told players to go out and rate their games a 10 on various review sites to pump up their ratings. They put all their effort into polishing the entry areas of the game to trick players into getting those initial subscriptions and then leave everything mid-late game to post launch updates. They blow lots of money on advertising for the same reason. I could go on but I won't.
So.. why should a company that lies, steals, and goes about their business this way a good thing for the industry? The fact is its not.. its only good for Funcom. But don't worry, I won't be hanging around the forums to drill that concept into people that still don't get it, that company has wasted enough of my time.
You sir are the problem. You're exactly what the first part of the article is talking about.
I can never understand anyone whom takes gaming and companies so serious and with such venom.
frankly i didnt mind TSW i thought it was a rather well polished game when i played the weekend cbt. sure some of the quests had bugs or were a pain in the ass to decode to compete but it was alright gameplay wise. i dont get why people hate it so much people are soo finical on games now days. its got to have dx9999999 graphics and be 100% destructive while being compeletly sexual in nature with full loot pvp ect ect...
but then they get it and dont want it cause its not what THAT person wants
kind sucks. tsw was/is fun for some people but others hate it.. and the ones who do bash on it instead of just moving on.
You're coming from a point of ignorance. What you deem as "trash" comments are usually made by Veteran MMORPG players who judge modern MMOs by the same standards as old MMOs. And compared to old MMOs, modern MMOs are SEVERELY lacking in the features that make an MMO an MMO. Most are shallow, uninspired, generic, and boring. But to someone new to the genre, they may be enticed for a time.
And you coming from a point of jaded elitism honestly. When you trash a game or pile on - you are affecting other peoples' lives. The problem for me isn't when a game deserves it, but can you honestly say that TSW deserves to cease to exist, as well as the company that made it. Has Funcom done such a horrible job that everyone should lose their jobs?
If you make a bad product, it doesn't deserve to succeed. Much less a bad product that is dishonest and as obviously money grubbing as TSW. That's capitalism. Do I WANT people to lose their jobs? No. But that's what happens when you make a bad product.
And no, I'm not coming from a point of "jaded elitism". I'm coming from a point of experience. I measure all MMOs against what MMOs are billed to be. Some games don't measure up, others do. Most of the ones that did measure up were released before 2003. A few are newer, like Vanguard and Darkfall.
This was a good article, but it feels like there's a lot left out. I'm guessing that's largely related to the fact that we are not Funcom insiders so can only speculate. I never played a Funcom game before TSW so had no preconceived notions of the game or the company. I had planned to buy GW2 and then saw some tidbit about TSW and pre-ordered on a whim.
I was fortunate to get into the beta fairly early and was frankly stunned in a negative way about some of the content. Being naive, I was glad it was "only beta" so the general public wouldn't see the mess that was character creation, significantly askew combat animations, cutscenes with characters so scary looking I'd close my eyes.
You can imagine my nerdrage then to see reviews after launch talking about things that existed in closed beta but were fixed before launch. I knew those reviews were lies, and I knew the reviewers hadn't been back into the game because the things they complained about were fixed.
I feel bad for Funcom, because stockholders and investors feed on drama and emotional rollercoaster rides. Yes, it's more of a niche game and I can see several costly marketing type mistakes. But TSW is a great game that deserves better.
You're coming from a point of ignorance. What you deem as "trash" comments are usually made by Veteran MMORPG players who judge modern MMOs by the same standards as old MMOs. And compared to old MMOs, modern MMOs are SEVERELY lacking in the features that make an MMO an MMO. Most are shallow, uninspired, generic, and boring. But to someone new to the genre, they may be enticed for a time.
Well i've been playing MMO's since the mid 90's and dial-up and I agree with him, the majority of user comments on this site are either trash or elitism. I see the same posters bashing every new game that comes out, usually based on a preview or interview not on experience, and saying how eveything was sooooooo much better in their day, guess they forgot about all the kill stealing, camp stealing, cockblocking, constant grind etc etc.
I'm so tired of hearing people wishing that a game will fail.. they don't even take into consideration what they're asking for. They're asking for hundreds of employees to lose their jobs and ability to provide for their families.. simply because they don't "like" the game or have some deep set grudge against the company because of a game you played 5 years ago.
If you don't like a game, state your reasoning and move on.. don't spend your time bashing the game and wishing for failure. It doesn't help the industry at all.
MMO developers have to be some of the most selfless people on the planet to work such long hours for very average pay to make a game that so many people end up hating, wishing for the failure or of wishing personal bodily harm to those who work on it.
It's sad to read so much, especially on this site.. especially in an industry where something "new" is rare. Everyone wants a company to try something different and then hope for their failure at the same time.
This site needs to start doing a better job at moderating its community. Most of the times its a band wagon mentlity of trashing a game for lolz.
Trashing a game because it's a bad game.
We hope for games to fail so that there's a positive change in the industry. Those developers will ultimately be the ones to suffer either way, so long as publishers that don't know what they're doing are dictating what the devs are making.
When I first came to this site I was like..this is amazing...now I can find a new MMO. Started reading the reviews...not bad......read the user comments and was......is any game worth playing? For the first few months I had the impression that 99%of the games listed on this site were trash. I thought this was strange and tried the games that interested me.
Now I think that 99% of the user comments are trash.
You're coming from a point of ignorance. What you deem as "trash" comments are usually made by Veteran MMORPG players who judge modern MMOs by the same standards as old MMOs. And compared to old MMOs, modern MMOs are SEVERELY lacking in the features that make an MMO an MMO. Most are shallow, uninspired, generic, and boring. But to someone new to the genre, they may be enticed for a time.
I use to put more weight into Veteran MMO gamers comments vs the reviews on this site. Reasoning being someone who plays the game should have a better understanding vs someone who has only dabbled. That has not been my experience.
Now I look for comments from certain posters only because they have a track record of actually having substance.
Most times most of the comments is just trolling in the guise of contributing to the topic. I have learned to do this myself, I can admit it. The pvp forum wars are some of the best entertainment while at work but I feel they drive potential players away. Not only from games but from the genre..and I do feel bad for contributing to it.
FYI, my first MMO was EQ before Sony acquired it. Try not to sound so pompous, you come across as one of those posters I am talking about.
Originally posted by Kuppa The aricle was OK. But I could not stand your f2p rant, I just don't agree with it. You basically made the f2p transition look like the greatest evil that could happen to a game.
Traditionally F2P is lower quality and for those that get into the game, end up paying more for an MMO. I present exhibit A) Allods Online.
Also, I just don't agree with you. He didn't say all F2P models do that, he said there was a potential for that to happen - thanks to investor pressure. And he's right.
I would say historically f2p was lower quality. We are where we are now and that is AAA's using micro transactions as thir revenue model. Allods was a rip off pure and simple in any case that is a straw man argument. I could present exhibits b) lotro c) Conan d) ...well you get the picture. Oh and they are certainly equal 'quality' to any other AAA, TSW included.
I don't often agree with Smedly but I think he is probablly right SWTOR will likely be the last major MMO to use a sub model.
This is why the game should have been F2P from the start.. I said it before, the game isn't bad nor is it great, but I don't see some persons wanting to pay beyond 2 or 3 months, no matter how much content and updates you throw at it..
On a personal note, I hate clothes (armor) its nothing to awwww at, the weapons design are cool and all.. Combat gets boring fast, which can be because of the animation etc...
Now the biggest gripe, because these guys work for a wall street company, the expectations for this was set so high that it was kinda doom before before launch.. I don't know how much sub they were expecting but I was saying I hope it doesn't need alot because it will never get it, and to make matters worse you had a veteran sub base game readying to launch only a few months after this, plus you have a damn good B2P being release also.. Person were either going to use this game as s hold over until those game launches or just try it out for the free month..
I blame Funcom really for expecting too high and just offering a lifetime and sub model payment.. Greed will only get you so far and the mmo crowd is more hard to please now than it did years ago..
Comments
Personally I would stop playing if it went F2P, as would many of the gamers I know. I hate the whole cash shop and paid content scheme and the arrogant little chavs it attracts. People who havent invested into a game through either extensive time and effort or through a monthly sub seem to be less interested in maintaining a good public profile, e.g not acting like asshats or ninja's.
It used to be that if someone acted like a large majority do nowadays they would quickly be guildless and barred from all decent groups/raids.
We've come to the point where it's silly to release a subscription based WoWclone/themepark game that focuses on solo content.
MMOs that rely on play oriented content and community still seem to do well without FTP. Reducing the upfront cost is smart though. But big publishers like Funcom try to get as much money out of hype and box sales before their game sinks.
Free to Play is a marketing term used to make money.
Didnt your mama's ever teach you that nothing is free in this world.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
I hate the community that comes with F2P. I would definately run for the door if it happened.
I get what you're saying but I'm talking about a publisher or producer or whatever ,conspiring with metacritic to short change the developer on any bonuses...thus keeping the extra cash for themselves. Oh well...its just conspiracy theory right now...just wondering if that happens.
This part is actually quite true. Most of those cash shop based games are centered around getting you to buy stuff from the cash shop. Games like Allods Online or Runes of Magic require huge investments in the cash shop later on. But games that sell content in pieces, like Wizard 101, are far better. The pay to play games that have gone freemium are still the better games. As yet, designing a good game and marketing it via microtransactions is still a difficult goal to reach. There are few good examples. League of Legends and Wizard 101 are the only ones that come to mind. They basically just have to make a solid game, and gate certain types of content. Instead of buying access in blocks of time, you buy portions of the game. Shallow grinder games, whether they are sub based or centered on microtransactions, will always suck. And games that exist to exploit a payment model will also always suck.
Important facts:
1. Free to Play games are poorly made.
2. Casuals are not all idiots, but idiots call themselves casuals.
3. Great solo and group content are not mutually exclusive, but they suffer when one is shoved into the mold of the other. The same is true of PvP and PvE.
4. Community is more important than you think.
I too hate the F2P moniker, micro transactions works much better.
One of the problems is that even if you like the game, once you run through the 'main bit' there is not much to warrant paying a monthly sub IMHO.
This is the problem that comes up if you shoe horn a payment model meant for MMORPGs into games like TSW that are more like singleplayer games that have a solo oriented "main part" to burn through.
Subs worked when MMOs created communities, and had to pay for big servers to host everyone in the same area. Not so much now in the linear instanced solo "MM"ORPG genre.
It does, all the time. I've even heard of companies such as Activision paying Metacritic to give their competitors high reviews for poor products thereby generating a massive amount of hype that will inevitably crush their competitor's product into an unrecoverable sinkhole.
That's at least what I've been told by "Metacritic Insiders", but i'm of the opinion they might just be internet "Attention" seekers emailing me this stuff
.
Although, the information I got from the same individuals suggests that EA-Bioware was going to pay all of the major review sites for glowing reviews based on user generated traffic on those reviews before the reviews were even up. Given all the 9stars and critics defending their scores for SWTOR I can only guess there might be some truth here?
Dunno, ~~~/goes back to work
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
When I first came to this site I was like..this is amazing...now I can find a new MMO. Started reading the reviews...not bad......read the user comments and was......is any game worth playing? For the first few months I had the impression that 99%of the games listed on this site were trash. I thought this was strange and tried the games that interested me.
Now I think that 99% of the user comments are trash.
You're coming from a point of ignorance. What you deem as "trash" comments are usually made by Veteran MMORPG players who judge modern MMOs by the same standards as old MMOs. And compared to old MMOs, modern MMOs are SEVERELY lacking in the features that make an MMO an MMO. Most are shallow, uninspired, generic, and boring. But to someone new to the genre, they may be enticed for a time.
Traditionally F2P is lower quality and for those that get into the game, end up paying more for an MMO. I present exhibit A) Allods Online.
Also, I just don't agree with you. He didn't say all F2P models do that, he said there was a potential for that to happen - thanks to investor pressure. And he's right.
And you coming from a point of jaded elitism honestly. When you trash a game or pile on - you are affecting other peoples' lives. The problem for me isn't when a game deserves it, but can you honestly say that TSW deserves to cease to exist, as well as the company that made it. Has Funcom done such a horrible job that everyone should lose their jobs? Only one game got me to that point, FF14. And people were fired and Square Enix is fixing it now. Will I go back? No I won't. Will I wish for the demise of FF14 or Square Enix because of it? Nope. I wish them well. TSW problems has more to do with Funcom and Age of Conan, than anything else. The journalists couldn't let it go and fans burned from before couldn't either.
-1 Sorry I gotta disagree with this, I think its you that might not see the big picture. Your 'emotional appeal' aside, there are some very very good reasons why some companies going away would be to the benefit of everyone and to the genre as a whole. It is not an all or nothing thing of course, it depends entirely on the qualities of the companies and the games they make. But if a company is bad, puts out poor quality products, treats its customers poorly and participates in shady business practices... why exactly does it deserve to keep doing business? Just because 'people' are employed there? Just because there is some minority of fans that like it? More damage is being done by keeping them in business. I don't wish death or pain on anyone, I would be surprised if anyone did, but I certainly don't want companies like that in business.
Now, I post rarely on the TSW forums, because I wasn't foolish enough to buy it after I didn't enjoy the trial. I was however foolish enough to buy Funcoms previous mmos Anarchy Online and Age of Conan and I was active in those forums. Their previous titles were released in poor working condition, without features the devs themselves claimed were in and fully working. People who brought attention to these problems were silenced by funcom and its fans. Myself and many others were overcharged on our credit cards ahead of the billing date (thank god for chargebacks, nice try FC). The devs shamelessly told players to go out and rate their games a 10 on various review sites to pump up their ratings. They put all their effort into polishing the entry areas of the game to trick players into getting those initial subscriptions and then leave everything mid-late game to post launch updates. They blow lots of money on advertising for the same reason. I could go on but I won't.
So.. why should a company that lies, steals, and goes about their business this way a good thing for the industry? The fact is its not.. its only good for Funcom. But don't worry, I won't be hanging around the forums to drill that concept into people that still don't get it, that company has wasted enough of my time.
Waiting for: A skill-based MMO with Freedom and Consequence.
Woe to thee, the pierce-ed.
Stick with it. New issues each month means for a few days/weeks you can check in and see something new for the game. Trust me. It's not going anywhere. Just play and have fun when you can, knowing that you bought the lifetime for a reason and that reason is still there and being improved upon.
good point also the players comments are bad sometimes (just because they are haters)!!!
same happent to me with Diablo 3 i read many comments that saying is bad but today i tried free trial and i said DO NOT READ COMMENTS FROM IDIOTS ANYMORE!!!! If i like it i play it and the opinion of others is ZERO!!!! Now i have to buy D3
and for F2P there is always a catch
You sir are the problem. You're exactly what the first part of the article is talking about.
I can never understand anyone whom takes gaming and companies so serious and with such venom.
frankly i didnt mind TSW i thought it was a rather well polished game when i played the weekend cbt. sure some of the quests had bugs or were a pain in the ass to decode to compete but it was alright gameplay wise. i dont get why people hate it so much
people are soo finical on games now days. its got to have dx9999999 graphics and be 100% destructive while being compeletly sexual in nature with full loot pvp ect ect...
but then they get it and dont want it cause its not what THAT person wants
kind sucks. tsw was/is fun for some people but others hate it.. and the ones who do bash on it
instead of just moving on.
If you make a bad product, it doesn't deserve to succeed. Much less a bad product that is dishonest and as obviously money grubbing as TSW. That's capitalism. Do I WANT people to lose their jobs? No. But that's what happens when you make a bad product.
And no, I'm not coming from a point of "jaded elitism". I'm coming from a point of experience. I measure all MMOs against what MMOs are billed to be. Some games don't measure up, others do. Most of the ones that did measure up were released before 2003. A few are newer, like Vanguard and Darkfall.
This was a good article, but it feels like there's a lot left out. I'm guessing that's largely related to the fact that we are not Funcom insiders so can only speculate. I never played a Funcom game before TSW so had no preconceived notions of the game or the company. I had planned to buy GW2 and then saw some tidbit about TSW and pre-ordered on a whim.
I was fortunate to get into the beta fairly early and was frankly stunned in a negative way about some of the content. Being naive, I was glad it was "only beta" so the general public wouldn't see the mess that was character creation, significantly askew combat animations, cutscenes with characters so scary looking I'd close my eyes.
You can imagine my nerdrage then to see reviews after launch talking about things that existed in closed beta but were fixed before launch. I knew those reviews were lies, and I knew the reviewers hadn't been back into the game because the things they complained about were fixed.
I feel bad for Funcom, because stockholders and investors feed on drama and emotional rollercoaster rides. Yes, it's more of a niche game and I can see several costly marketing type mistakes. But TSW is a great game that deserves better.
Well i've been playing MMO's since the mid 90's and dial-up and I agree with him, the majority of user comments on this site are either trash or elitism. I see the same posters bashing every new game that comes out, usually based on a preview or interview not on experience, and saying how eveything was sooooooo much better in their day, guess they forgot about all the kill stealing, camp stealing, cockblocking, constant grind etc etc.
I use to put more weight into Veteran MMO gamers comments vs the reviews on this site. Reasoning being someone who plays the game should have a better understanding vs someone who has only dabbled. That has not been my experience.
Now I look for comments from certain posters only because they have a track record of actually having substance.
Most times most of the comments is just trolling in the guise of contributing to the topic. I have learned to do this myself, I can admit it. The pvp forum wars are some of the best entertainment while at work but I feel they drive potential players away. Not only from games but from the genre..and I do feel bad for contributing to it.
FYI, my first MMO was EQ before Sony acquired it. Try not to sound so pompous, you come across as one of those posters I am talking about.
I would say historically f2p was lower quality. We are where we are now and that is AAA's using micro transactions as thir revenue model. Allods was a rip off pure and simple in any case that is a straw man argument. I could present exhibits b) lotro c) Conan d) ...well you get the picture. Oh and they are certainly equal 'quality' to any other AAA, TSW included.
I don't often agree with Smedly but I think he is probablly right SWTOR will likely be the last major MMO to use a sub model.
On a personal note, I hate clothes (armor) its nothing to awwww at, the weapons design are cool and all.. Combat gets boring fast, which can be because of the animation etc...
Now the biggest gripe, because these guys work for a wall street company, the expectations for this was set so high that it was kinda doom before before launch.. I don't know how much sub they were expecting but I was saying I hope it doesn't need alot because it will never get it, and to make matters worse you had a veteran sub base game readying to launch only a few months after this, plus you have a damn good B2P being release also.. Person were either going to use this game as s hold over until those game launches or just try it out for the free month..
I blame Funcom really for expecting too high and just offering a lifetime and sub model payment.. Greed will only get you so far and the mmo crowd is more hard to please now than it did years ago..