This is part of the reason I refuse to sub to games. I have to not only pay a subscription, but I must also play a certain amount of hours to make that subscription feel worth it.
And if I decide to put the game down, I just flushed a lot more time and money down the toilet than I'd care to admit.
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
People like this OP are why MMOs are going down the crapper into the F2P realm where they nickle and dime you to death just so the part time player feels on the same level as everyone else. Sorry to All you OP backers however here is the fact. The overwhelming majority of what you called the Entitled gamers today are the same gamers who were hardcore during vanilla and earned everything that had. 8+ years ago these gamers did not have families, or careers to be concerned about or even have to continuously go back to school to keep their skills up to date. A GAME DOES NOT FEED A FAMILY so you can all keep talking about how games should not catter to ENTITLED GAMERS that do not have 4 to 6 hours a night to spend playing a GAME that does not pay the bills or feed kids. Your Group of hardcore gamers are become an ever shrinking group and fewer and fewer people are willing to pay to not see the content as people once were. IT IS A BUSINESS CHOICE TO IGNORE YOU because these Publishers know their are more people that want to pay however having fewer hours a week to play and they still want to feel accomplishment.
A hardcore gamer's $15 a month is the same as a casual player's $15 a month, Only their are far more casuals than hardcore players.
NOW does this mean that the players who do not play the content should get to see it or the gear. NO! However the content should not be like Vanilla WoW's Naxx 1.0 or Sunwell. What should happen and what must happen business wise and MMO community wise is this. Raids need to be scaled which is the core issue for players like me, I once was a player in BWL And AQ20/40 however I dont have the time to play that much maybe 2 nights 3 hours max a night for raiding. Thats it if I had to raid large raids and spend all my time managing them again I will not do it, why do you think there are few large raiding guilds around compared to the small raiding guilds? CAUSE it takes more OUT OF GAME TIME TO MANAGE than it takes to PLAY THE GAME. If I have 10 hours a week I want 10 hours a week of playing the game, not dealing with raid group BS.
The second thing that needs to happen is they need to NERF the content when new content comes out much like WoW does. Sorry Hardcore players however your 1% and money will never ever make up for the 99% who pay the same amount as you and will be happier to take 3 to 5 months to see the content and make the game a process vs 2 month 4 nights a week 6 hours a night raiding. There are fewer of you and always will be without the larger population you will have F2P crap that will nickle and dime you, See Runes of Magic. I know people in there to be a top end raider spend $1K to $5K a year to be exclusive raiders.
Post like what this OP writes is why many games are going down the crapper. It breeds hatered because the OP thinks he is a special Butterfly that should be one of the few to see everything because real life does not get in his way. This causes many new MMO players as well as casual MMO players to refuse to pay $15 a month for a subscription if they had to quit their job and throw their family out on the street just so they themselves can see all of the content. Until the community stops complaining that "John and Phil seen Sunwell 6 months after I completed it on hardmode this game sucks because they nerfed it so others can see the content" and accepts that the content is not for a select few that have all the time in the world we will continue to see garabage come out for MMOs.
MMO design moved away from players who wanted to play an online RPG to those who wanted to play their solo RPG online. And just like their solo RPG, they think you should be able to see everything in the one online.
I don't see any evidence of that.
In fact, the rise of F2P is exactly the opposite. They know they can only play part of the game, but for free.
Lets be completely honest. It wasn't just the time factor that kept people from experiencing end game. Back in the EQ hayday It was very much gated content, where you had to be in a top tier guild because raids were... lets just say not easy. End game was excluded from the majority, who either didn't have what it took to play at those levels or simply didn't know the right people.
Time wasn't much of a factor, because those that didn't have time wouldn't play EQ, one of the most time consuming MMOs i've ever played with time sinks galore.
Time might be a factor with today's generation which is why we have watered down MMORPG's. In that regard I agree with the OP. Other than that, the rest is just pure elitism which we don't need to go back to. If people pay a box price and a monthly fee they should have every opportunity to experience all aspects of a game and not just the special few.
Time might be a factor with today's generation which is why we have watered down MMORPG's. In that regard I agree with the OP. Other than that, the rest is just pure elitism which we don't need to go back to. If people pay a box price and a monthly fee they should have every opportunity to experience all aspects of a game and not just the special few.
And I think Blizz is doing that by putting in difficulty option. All the raids are now accessible. You can do LFR if you don't have time/guild.
And you can do hard mode if you want to devote months to practice and beat the content.
MMO design moved away from players who wanted to play an online RPG to those who wanted to play their solo RPG online. And just like their solo RPG, they think you should be able to see everything in the one online.
I don't see any evidence of that.
In fact, the rise of F2P is exactly the opposite. They know they can only play part of the game, but for free.
I was talking about the old days, when most MMO's were P2P. They were paying monthly so expected to see and be able to do everything in the first week they started the MMO.
These days those joining for free do not expect to see and do everything from the get go. It would be a bit much if they did!
Having said that every time a F2P MMO announces that free players are going to be able to see/take part in more of the game it is met with great praise and articles on sites like this one. If you want to make a case for entitlement mentality in gaming, I would make it there.
I was talking about the old days, when most MMO's were P2P. They were paying monthly so expected to see and be able to do everything in the first week they started the MMO.
Ah .. ok. No disgreement here.
These days those joining for free do not expect to see and do everything from the get go. It would be a bit much if they did!
Yeh.
Having said that every time a F2P MMO announces that free players are going to be able to see/take part in more of the game it is met with great praise and articles on sites like this one. If you want to make a case for entitlement mentality in gaming, I would make it there.
I don't see it as enttitlement when it is the devs who is pushing to give the players more for free. May be it is competition. May be it is to get more people into the door. The reason matter little.
At the same time, it is a free market. If some consumers want to have an entitlement mentality, it is their perogative. Devs have little obligations to provide anything accordingly.
I don't see it as enttitlement when it is the devs who is pushing to give the players more for free. May be it is competition. May be it is to get more people into the door. The reason matter little.
At the same time, it is a free market. If some consumers want to have an entitlement mentality, it is their perogative. Devs have little obligations to provide anything accordingly.
At first glance it may not matter. But in the end it will matter. What is a company going to do in today's MMO market?
Cut costs for development as well as maintenance.
Increase the marketing budget.
Introduce micro transactions where the total price for a customer is not transparent.
Target a mass market with a bland, standardized and cheap product.
I don't see it as enttitlement when it is the devs who is pushing to give the players more for free. May be it is competition. May be it is to get more people into the door. The reason matter little.
At the same time, it is a free market. If some consumers want to have an entitlement mentality, it is their perogative. Devs have little obligations to provide anything accordingly.
At first glance it may not matter. But in the end it will matter. What is a company going to do in today's MMO market?
Cut costs for development as well as maintenance.
Increase the marketing budget.
Introduce micro transactions where the total price for a customer is not transparent.
Target a mass market with a bland, standardized and cheap product.
It does not matter to me because i have choices.
1. If the cost cutting don't show up in my fun, i don't really care.
2. Ditto ... i don't play games for the marketing.
3. Matter very little. Free to play games = some part is free. The pay part does not concern me. When i hit a pay wall, i will move on. The total price is always zero, for all the F2P games i play.
4. That is up for interpretation, and only matter in specifics. If a game is fun to me, i care less if it is targetting the masses, or just me.
Originally posted by Salahudin definitely 15$ a month ought to give access to all content... but whether you get to it or not should depend on your skill and play..
agreed ... can't see what the problem is TBH. If you pay a sub you expect to get access to all content unless it's stated otherwise in the T&Cs.
That doesn't mean you are entitled to all content.
But it doesn't mean that you pay a sub and then have content locked away behind a paywall.
Did I miss something in the OP?
I sometimes make spelling and grammar errors but I don't pretend it's because I'm using a phone
I'm 41 with a wife, a job, and three kids. Needless to say, I don't have nearly the time that I used have back in my Everquest gaming days.
Will I ever be anything but casual again? Nope. Will I ever have time to be part of a high end raiding guild again? Hell no. Will I ever see the high end loot again. Absolutely not. But that's how it should be. If I choose to play a game, it's up to me to adapt to the game, not the other way around.
I'm 41 with a wife, a job, and three kids. Needless to say, I don't have nearly the time that I used have back in my Everquest gaming days.
Will I ever be anything but casual again? Nope. Will I ever have time to be part of a high end raiding guild again? Hell no. Will I ever see the high end loot again. Absolutely not. But that's how it should be. If I choose to play a game, it's up to me to adapt to the game, not the other way around.
I agree.I don't have time to be a hardcore raider or PvPer anymore either but if I find an MMO I like I find people in the same boat and work around the time we all have to play and contribute and do so at our own speed.We don't need to see all the content because there's plenty enough to keep us busy.
I've never understood the I want all the content,superficial or not, right now even if I have to pay instead of play crowd.
Also I find the OP's theories biased and unproven.My biased and unproven theory is that as soon as Wizards of the West Coast proved people will pay for extras to get an advantage with Magic The Gathering the writing was on the wall.With F2P you get easy money for little effort,so devs/publishers were always gonna flock to it.
Will I ever be anything but casual again? Nope. Will I ever have time to be part of a high end raiding guild again? Hell no. Will I ever see the high end loot again. Absolutely not. But that's how it should be. If I choose to play a game, it's up to me to adapt to the game, not the other way around.
Free market goes both ways. You are clearly not going to play a game with only high end raiding and nothing else.
Devs choose whether to cater to your needs, and they have to adapt to the market to survive.
Very simply, i don't adapt to games. I play them as i like, and move on when i don't. Devs have no obligation to cater to my wishes, but if they want my business, they better. It is a free world.
Originally posted by Salahudin definitely 15$ a month ought to give access to all content... but whether you get to it or not should depend on your skill and play..
I have 3 jobs and 2 wives. Devs should cater to the majority like me. (/pauses to giggle like a schoolgirl)..who have a life, not the basement dwelling zombies.
I disagree. Devs should make it so that basement dwellers can be more uber than us casual players. It's the right thing to do since they don't have a life: now they have (a virtual) one!
Originally posted by Salahudin definitely 15$ a month ought to give access to all content... but whether you get to it or not should depend on your skill and play..
I have 3 jobs and 2 wives. Devs should cater to the majority like me. (/pauses to giggle like a schoolgirl)..who have a life, not the basement dwelling zombies.
I disagree. Devs should make it so that basement dwellers can be more uber than us casual players. It's the right thing to do since they don't have a life: now they have (a virtual) one!
LOL
The truth is it is a free market and devs can cater to whoever they want. There is no right thing to do. There is only different business strategies, and some devs are more successful than others.
Customers don't make the games they just play them.
but a good player base paying a monthly fee makes a good budget, which in turn makes a good, high quality game if spent wisely
Or a number of whales pay through the roof makes a good budget, which in turn makes a good, high quality game if spent wisely.
Or...it leads to slight variations of things whales buy in the cash shop.
Or it leads to more content hoping to convert more players into whales?
Hasn't lead to that in any game I've tried by that's just my opinion amd why I'm not playing any MMO right now.
And it has led to that in MMOs i played (STO, DDO, LOTRO .. all have new content),and that is why i am playing MMOs right now.
I used to love LoTRO,burglar is still one of the best rogue classes ever if not he best, but since it went F2P I haven't found the new content compelling or long lasting or as good as before it's transformation.This goes for all the games you mentioned and STO's released were always short lived and anemic even before going F2P.Bur hey if it works for you I can't argue against that.
Personally I'd rather pay for a well made single player game or multiplayer game than play any of the current MMOs for free.Or failing anything interesting me in Gaming(likely with summer here) then I'll invest in netflix and T.V during sown time or do outdoor activities of which there are numerous around here.Since my friends feel the same I have no peer pressure to take up any MMO either.
I don't see it as enttitlement when it is the devs who is pushing to give the players more for free. May be it is competition. May be it is to get more people into the door. The reason matter little.
At the same time, it is a free market. If some consumers want to have an entitlement mentality, it is their perogative. Devs have little obligations to provide anything accordingly.
At first glance it may not matter. But in the end it will matter. What is a company going to do in today's MMO market?
Cut costs for development as well as maintenance.
Increase the marketing budget.
Introduce micro transactions where the total price for a customer is not transparent.
Target a mass market with a bland, standardized and cheap product.
Unfortunately this is where the MMO industry has been for a few years now. Trying to keep players interested in one MMO template when you have hundreds of MMOs out there using the same template is not easy. I do feel MMO's have entered a feeding frenzy and are in danger of eating each other.
I am not sure what will be left, but we are in July now and only one P2P/B2P MMO has been released this year. If F2P from launch MMO's are all that the future has to offer then an even more bland, standardised, cheap product may be the future of MMO's.
The F2P model has two main issues, lack of money from investment before release and the cash shop distorting the MMO's gameplay. A few years ago I would have seen no solution to either issue, now Kickstarter could provide a solution to the lack of funding. Could, but has yet to, so don't hold your breath. Some hybrid MMO's have a better cash shop than others, but they never escape the problems associated with a cash shop. So I don't see much light on the horizon.
Comments
Just don't P2P. There are plenty of options.
This is part of the reason I refuse to sub to games. I have to not only pay a subscription, but I must also play a certain amount of hours to make that subscription feel worth it.
And if I decide to put the game down, I just flushed a lot more time and money down the toilet than I'd care to admit.
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
People like this OP are why MMOs are going down the crapper into the F2P realm where they nickle and dime you to death just so the part time player feels on the same level as everyone else. Sorry to All you OP backers however here is the fact. The overwhelming majority of what you called the Entitled gamers today are the same gamers who were hardcore during vanilla and earned everything that had. 8+ years ago these gamers did not have families, or careers to be concerned about or even have to continuously go back to school to keep their skills up to date. A GAME DOES NOT FEED A FAMILY so you can all keep talking about how games should not catter to ENTITLED GAMERS that do not have 4 to 6 hours a night to spend playing a GAME that does not pay the bills or feed kids. Your Group of hardcore gamers are become an ever shrinking group and fewer and fewer people are willing to pay to not see the content as people once were. IT IS A BUSINESS CHOICE TO IGNORE YOU because these Publishers know their are more people that want to pay however having fewer hours a week to play and they still want to feel accomplishment.
A hardcore gamer's $15 a month is the same as a casual player's $15 a month, Only their are far more casuals than hardcore players.
NOW does this mean that the players who do not play the content should get to see it or the gear. NO! However the content should not be like Vanilla WoW's Naxx 1.0 or Sunwell. What should happen and what must happen business wise and MMO community wise is this. Raids need to be scaled which is the core issue for players like me, I once was a player in BWL And AQ20/40 however I dont have the time to play that much maybe 2 nights 3 hours max a night for raiding. Thats it if I had to raid large raids and spend all my time managing them again I will not do it, why do you think there are few large raiding guilds around compared to the small raiding guilds? CAUSE it takes more OUT OF GAME TIME TO MANAGE than it takes to PLAY THE GAME. If I have 10 hours a week I want 10 hours a week of playing the game, not dealing with raid group BS.
The second thing that needs to happen is they need to NERF the content when new content comes out much like WoW does. Sorry Hardcore players however your 1% and money will never ever make up for the 99% who pay the same amount as you and will be happier to take 3 to 5 months to see the content and make the game a process vs 2 month 4 nights a week 6 hours a night raiding. There are fewer of you and always will be without the larger population you will have F2P crap that will nickle and dime you, See Runes of Magic. I know people in there to be a top end raider spend $1K to $5K a year to be exclusive raiders.
Post like what this OP writes is why many games are going down the crapper. It breeds hatered because the OP thinks he is a special Butterfly that should be one of the few to see everything because real life does not get in his way. This causes many new MMO players as well as casual MMO players to refuse to pay $15 a month for a subscription if they had to quit their job and throw their family out on the street just so they themselves can see all of the content. Until the community stops complaining that "John and Phil seen Sunwell 6 months after I completed it on hardmode this game sucks because they nerfed it so others can see the content" and accepts that the content is not for a select few that have all the time in the world we will continue to see garabage come out for MMOs.
I don't see any evidence of that.
In fact, the rise of F2P is exactly the opposite. They know they can only play part of the game, but for free.
Lets be completely honest. It wasn't just the time factor that kept people from experiencing end game. Back in the EQ hayday It was very much gated content, where you had to be in a top tier guild because raids were... lets just say not easy. End game was excluded from the majority, who either didn't have what it took to play at those levels or simply didn't know the right people.
Time wasn't much of a factor, because those that didn't have time wouldn't play EQ, one of the most time consuming MMOs i've ever played with time sinks galore.
Time might be a factor with today's generation which is why we have watered down MMORPG's. In that regard I agree with the OP. Other than that, the rest is just pure elitism which we don't need to go back to. If people pay a box price and a monthly fee they should have every opportunity to experience all aspects of a game and not just the special few.
And I think Blizz is doing that by putting in difficulty option. All the raids are now accessible. You can do LFR if you don't have time/guild.
And you can do hard mode if you want to devote months to practice and beat the content.
I was talking about the old days, when most MMO's were P2P. They were paying monthly so expected to see and be able to do everything in the first week they started the MMO.
These days those joining for free do not expect to see and do everything from the get go. It would be a bit much if they did!
Having said that every time a F2P MMO announces that free players are going to be able to see/take part in more of the game it is met with great praise and articles on sites like this one. If you want to make a case for entitlement mentality in gaming, I would make it there.
At first glance it may not matter. But in the end it will matter. What is a company going to do in today's MMO market?It does not matter to me because i have choices.
1. If the cost cutting don't show up in my fun, i don't really care.
2. Ditto ... i don't play games for the marketing.
3. Matter very little. Free to play games = some part is free. The pay part does not concern me. When i hit a pay wall, i will move on. The total price is always zero, for all the F2P games i play.
4. That is up for interpretation, and only matter in specifics. If a game is fun to me, i care less if it is targetting the masses, or just me.
Customers don't make the games they just play them.
but a good player base paying a monthly fee makes a good budget, which in turn makes a good, high quality game if spent wisely
agreed ... can't see what the problem is TBH. If you pay a sub you expect to get access to all content unless it's stated otherwise in the T&Cs.
That doesn't mean you are entitled to all content.
But it doesn't mean that you pay a sub and then have content locked away behind a paywall.
Did I miss something in the OP?
I sometimes make spelling and grammar errors but I don't pretend it's because I'm using a phone
I'm 41 with a wife, a job, and three kids. Needless to say, I don't have nearly the time that I used have back in my Everquest gaming days.
Will I ever be anything but casual again? Nope. Will I ever have time to be part of a high end raiding guild again? Hell no. Will I ever see the high end loot again. Absolutely not. But that's how it should be. If I choose to play a game, it's up to me to adapt to the game, not the other way around.
I agree.I don't have time to be a hardcore raider or PvPer anymore either but if I find an MMO I like I find people in the same boat and work around the time we all have to play and contribute and do so at our own speed.We don't need to see all the content because there's plenty enough to keep us busy.
I've never understood the I want all the content,superficial or not, right now even if I have to pay instead of play crowd.
Also I find the OP's theories biased and unproven.My biased and unproven theory is that as soon as Wizards of the West Coast proved people will pay for extras to get an advantage with Magic The Gathering the writing was on the wall.With F2P you get easy money for little effort,so devs/publishers were always gonna flock to it.
Or a number of whales pay through the roof makes a good budget, which in turn makes a good, high quality game if spent wisely.
Free market goes both ways. You are clearly not going to play a game with only high end raiding and nothing else.
Devs choose whether to cater to your needs, and they have to adapt to the market to survive.
Very simply, i don't adapt to games. I play them as i like, and move on when i don't. Devs have no obligation to cater to my wishes, but if they want my business, they better. It is a free world.
Or...it leads to slight variations of things whales buy in the cash shop.
Or it leads to more content hoping to convert more players into whales?
Hasn't lead to that in any game I've tried by that's just my opinion amd why I'm not playing any MMO right now.
I disagree. Devs should make it so that basement dwellers can be more uber than us casual players. It's the right thing to do since they don't have a life: now they have (a virtual) one!
And it has led to that in MMOs i played (STO, DDO, LOTRO .. all have new content),and that is why i am playing MMOs right now.
LOL
The truth is it is a free market and devs can cater to whoever they want. There is no right thing to do. There is only different business strategies, and some devs are more successful than others.
I used to love LoTRO,burglar is still one of the best rogue classes ever if not he best, but since it went F2P I haven't found the new content compelling or long lasting or as good as before it's transformation.This goes for all the games you mentioned and STO's released were always short lived and anemic even before going F2P.Bur hey if it works for you I can't argue against that.
Personally I'd rather pay for a well made single player game or multiplayer game than play any of the current MMOs for free.Or failing anything interesting me in Gaming(likely with summer here) then I'll invest in netflix and T.V during sown time or do outdoor activities of which there are numerous around here.Since my friends feel the same I have no peer pressure to take up any MMO either.
I
Unfortunately this is where the MMO industry has been for a few years now. Trying to keep players interested in one MMO template when you have hundreds of MMOs out there using the same template is not easy. I do feel MMO's have entered a feeding frenzy and are in danger of eating each other.
I am not sure what will be left, but we are in July now and only one P2P/B2P MMO has been released this year. If F2P from launch MMO's are all that the future has to offer then an even more bland, standardised, cheap product may be the future of MMO's.
The F2P model has two main issues, lack of money from investment before release and the cash shop distorting the MMO's gameplay. A few years ago I would have seen no solution to either issue, now Kickstarter could provide a solution to the lack of funding. Could, but has yet to, so don't hold your breath. Some hybrid MMO's have a better cash shop than others, but they never escape the problems associated with a cash shop. So I don't see much light on the horizon.