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Should you pay a subscription for a Not-Really MMO?
Deadzo
Member Posts: 29
The recent launch of AoC and the instancing gripes from it's players begs the question: Should you be paying a monthly fee for a "multiplayer role playing game"?
Take into consideration games such as: Hellgate London, Guild Wars, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Dungeon Runners.
Some charge, some just sell you the box and hope you get bored, thus staying off the servers, some go into nickel and diming you for inventory space etc.
It used to be that you could pick up virtually any game for pc, and it would be supported in multiplayer in one fashion or another. Even the worst game ever would have a multiplayer function, a few servers with no one playing it, but no fees.
Now, it seems every company is only looking for a reason to charge you a monthly subscription, no focus on game quality or quantity, just "Whats another way we can charge a subscription to people?"
I understand that games that support huge amounts of players have a better reason to charge a fee, as opposed to an out-of-the-box first person shooter.
I'm asking, shouldn't we have specific standards in games before we're expected to start paying a subscription fee?
Comments
I am sick of games instanced-based games that try and charge a subscription fee. They offer nothing more than an online RPG with server-side-stored characters for security against hacking. Guild Wars was the best game in this area because there was no subscription to be had. Sure, heavily instanced, but at least it didn't try and charge a subscription fee for something merely MMO-like.
AoC it s no more instanced than EQ2, it has nothing to do with Guild Wars ad Hellgate.
Play it before you open the gob
And who do you think is hosting / paying for those empty servers ?
The reason why there's no fee in those games is that the developer/publisher isn't the one paying for them, other than the meta-server ( the server listing all player servers ), which is very cheap and requires little maintenance.
Infinity: The Quest for Earth, space-sim MMO with a seamless procedural galaxy.
Guild Wrs hit the nail on the head.. That WAS a single player game WITH multiplayer function and they treated it as such.. You bought the game and to play with other people is FREE.. If AoC is ANYTHING like Guild Wars , where towns are nothing mjore than lobbys and chatroom areas where you meet and greet like Dungeons and Dragons online then it should have follow3ed the guild wars system and just made people pay for the box.
EQ 2 is instanced yes, but the way the areas are joined make the game feel as if any instance is actually part of the bigger world. Things connect logically. Now I havent played AoC yet, BUT if the world seems disconnected much like guild wars with the "portals" to towns and stuff, then that is not cool at all and caqnnot even TRICK the mind into believeing one is apart of a bigger massive world..
Another good example of this would be the disastrous instancing of Pirates of the Burning Sea.. How horrid that there are no day and night cycles at ports and sea battles or even melee battles all take place in areas that look generic and randomly tacked on.
MMO's have to be a flowing world.. It has to be an enviroment that can stream well and connect as if it IS actually a world as a whole.. Not a bunch of rooms with pictures and painted walls.
It depends. To me Dungeon Runners is worth 5 bucks a month to enjoy the better gear. DDO is not worth 15 bucks a month. GW isn't even worth being on my machine. In short, I think it depends on how fun the game is. If its worth playing, then its worth dishing some cash out for.
First and foremost, I think players need to come to grips with what is reasonable. All too often I see demands for two things:
1) I want bleeding edge, realistic graphics! None of this cartoony, Crayola crayon crap!
2) I want seamless worlds, without instancing! I want to play with thousands of other people on-screen!
Well guess what? Those two desires are completely at odds with one another. I don't care how "uber" your rig is, that you know a guy who's uncle is in IT, or what you think modern technology *should* be able to do. There's a limit to how many polygons, particle effects and textures a computer can thrash about on your screen, maintain a consistent framerate, AND keep you in sync with other players.
Exactly. People go and complain about instances (which, IMO aren't that bad) but when they see bad graphics, they immediately bash the game for bad graphics. Some people just seem to think they can have amazing graphics and a seamless world with no instances, BUT THEY CAN'T!
People are quick to bash a game with bad graohics, which is why developers are forced to make good graphics at the cost of instances.
But, I still fail to see what is so bad about instances. I don't really mind them, if it's worth it that is.
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Good luck finding a MMOG that doesn't use either zones or instances.
I don't know of one.
The word is "acceptable".
(X) voted OP is a troll and this thread fails.
When I said i had "time", i meant virtual time, i got no RL "time" for you.
Hey if being picky about where i spend my hard earned money makes me a troll, then so be it.
I see most of you are more than happy to not only bend over and beg companies to put the ***** to you, but you've got a list of reasons telling them how entitled they are in so doing.
If a game sucks, I'll post about it and stop paying them. Try it sometime.
Hey if being picky about where i spend my hard earned money makes me a troll, then so be it.
I see most of you are more than happy to not only bend over and beg companies to put the ***** to you, but you've got a list of reasons telling them how entitled they are in so doing.
If a game sucks, I'll post about it and stop paying them. Try it sometime.
And if the game rocks, I'll gladly pay my $15/month. Try it sometime... oh wait, you don't actually play games do you?
I love that one.. where people whine and cry and demand excellent graphics.. then whine and cry and throw tampertantrums when their rig chokes on said graphics.
Instancing is alright, thats not really the problem with AoC, although lots of people are latching on to that notion. The problem with aoc is lack of anything other than the combat mechanism. It's a linear hack n slash diablo style game more than a virtual world to exist in. There's crafting sure (even if it crashes the client) but its very shallow click and wait crafting to make stuff thats not very useful anyway.
The only instancing issue I had with it is that the player cities are all carbon copies of each other in instances, with exactly the same layout etc. Would have been better to just make a few really large zones with relatively open building policies.. kind of like how swg did it
Except that's not what this thread, nor your obvlously biased "poll" was all about. Rather it was you fishing for validation.
We get it already. You don't like instancing. You don't think games with instancing merit a monthly fee. Your voice has been heard.
Even City of Heroes/Villians have great instances.. You go into doors and sewers and ride subways to instances and other areas.. I'm not saying instances are a bad thing, in most cases they are absolutely necessary for population control, but they have to APPEAR to make sense or be one with the world..
Silly warps that can take you to any given instance is garbage to me (not saying thats what AoC is because I have hnever played it, but we are not simply talking about AoC here, we are talking about instances..)
I determine if a game is worth paying for by how much enjoyment I am getting from it, not the specifics of how the developers have structured the game.
i.e. If I am having fun I don't mind the $15 a month, If I am not having fun, I'll unsubcribe, uninstall the game, and walk away. Not my concern if others are having fun or not, that is up to them.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
I don't see a Vote button. I would've selected the first option. The OP raises a valid point; one that's been on my mind. I think game companies are more just trying to sell boxes; and maybe make a little money off the subs. In other words, THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO GET HOOKED. They're only looking for $ off the box sales.
SOE said they want to "get away from the model of subscriptions" and want to sell more expansions. So that's one major industry player who admits this openly.
That way, when the next MMO comes out, you'll simply buy the box since boring gameplay has driven you away from the last MMO released.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
if you actually believe that and aren't just joking you sir, are a nincompoop.
anyway. people argue that the comparatively very expensive monthly fees are in place for mmos because running a peristant world needs better servers, so they need all that money to run the game. sorry but this is mostly balls. yes it costs them more money to run a persistant world, but you can bet your ass that of your fee very little of it is actually needed for server cost.
look at the private wow servers that are doing a fairly decent job running servers which are practically full. blizzard will use top notch server clusters per realm, but there are tons of people playing on each realm.
My blog:
Lineage II, Perfect World, Dark and Light and Vanguard? I know there is more than that even but those are the four that I can think of off the top of my head. It is very possible and has been done before.
Edit: On topic.....You should pay a subscription for any game you play that has one. Its up to the developer whether or not to charge you monthly. If you don't want to pay you always have the option not to play.
Bren
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People already answer this question with their cash.
Games without zones/instances? Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, Vanguard, Risk Your Life, Star Wars Galaxies, I can keep going if you want?
Darkfall Travelogues!
An example of bad instancing:
Instance A (starter town) <--(zone)---> Instance B (overworld levling area ) <------> Instance C (experienced adventurer town) <------> Instance D (experienced overworld leveling area) <-----> Instance E (veteran adventurer town) <------> Instance F (Veteran overworld leveling area..
Thats called a streamlined world.. It does not gel together as a WHOLE world, because in order to get BACK to say the starter town (Instance A) you have to go back through Instance E,D,C and B..
A good example of Instancing could be:
A<--->B<--->C, B<--->A<--->C, A<--->C<--->B
Meaning that, you could actually access the A Instance from either Instance B or C creating a "whole" effect, that could resemble taking an alternate path in a world to reach the same area.
However, for some reason players seem to think that "one size fits all" and because Guild Wars is able to maintain it's model that all games that use any instancing can do the same.
As far as conan it does instancing a bit more like EQ II than Guildwars as far as the world is concerned. But even taking into account instanced encounters, that doesn't mean that maintaining their servers doesn't cost money. On top of other business costs.
And in the end, it doesn't matter. If Guildwars was to suddenly say "hey, we're charging" then that's what they will be doing and the players have a choice to play or not. A company doesn't actually have to justify the "need" to use subscription money for servers. They can just decide that that is how they want to get their money and they will base the subscription off of what they require/want for revenue.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
if you actually believe that and aren't just joking you sir, are a nincompoop.
anyway. people argue that the comparatively very expensive monthly fees are in place for mmos because running a peristant world needs better servers, so they need all that money to run the game. sorry but this is mostly balls. yes it costs them more money to run a persistant world, but you can bet your ass that of your fee very little of it is actually needed for server cost.
look at the private wow servers that are doing a fairly decent job running servers which are practically full. blizzard will use top notch server clusters per realm, but there are tons of people playing on each realm.
I have to agree. Like anything else, the question isnt how munch $$$ is needed to run the servers, it's how much $$$ the market will accept. If they think they can get $15 a month, they have every right to try for it. And if people pay, they were right. If they think they can get $20 or even $30 they are welcome to try!But at the same time, it's ours to say "It's not worth it" (as is why I will never play PlanetSide again) or "yeah, this is fun enough to pay for." Where the balance lands is what the price will be.