Originally posted by omunegru Let me tell the Blizzard fanboys a little story. I am playin since the "ZX Spectrum era" and trust me, i know what i'm talking about.
How many of you played Warcraft I ? It was a fantastic game for its time. Bought mine which was on 4 or 6 1.44MB diskettes. It was absolutly addictive. I've played with my friends in multiplayer using a Serial Cable. A orc's Demon hitting a human church was something that i will never forget. Then there was Diablo I, Starcraft, Diablo II, Warcraft II, and then Warcraft III. All absolutly superb games. After Warcraft III, The Frozen Throne expansion, Blizzard was my religion. All their games were perfect. Making such beatifull games helped Blizzard earn money. And it was NOT from a monthly fee. Yet services such as Battle.net: Diablo II, Starcraft, Warcraft III still exists and they existed way before WoW (so dont try to argue that WoW's fees are keeping Diablo II Battle Net servers running). A beautifull Non MMO game can be profitable and can keep online servers up. It is true that content isnt added at the same rate as for a MMO, but thats where montly fee makes the difference. To continue my story, Blizzard, after the release of Warcraft III (+ expansion) was the most respected and known game company in the world. It was Vivendi's (blizzard's "boss") only profitable department. No wonder World Of Warcraft was one of the most anticipated game in the world and history. I was one of the millions that checked the WoW's site daily thirsty for some new info about the game. You CANNOT imagine my disappointment when finally WoW was out . It is a cheap DAOC clone with crap game mechanics. The only thing that made me play it for a few days was the familiar Warcraft universe that was so close to my heart from playing WC3. After few day, i couldnt take it anymore so i left and returned to the one and only: Warcraft III. I think WoW's HUGE subscription database exists because of the PREVIOUS games that were pure gems. Diablo fans, starcraft fans, warcraft fans, all bought WoW and start playing. It was a new game from their loved company. Some played cuz they've already paid for it, some played cuz it was something new and they hadnt consider any alternative and some even like it, imagine that. WoW's succes is based on the fame Blizzard had due to their other games, games created by ppl that left the company and that is showing up. Blizzard is not what it was before and i cannot expect any future games from them to be at least good. WoW is a bad clone (i'm referring to the game mechanics) who has a good part that doesnt make it a complete failure: a beautifull universe with an imersive history. If you say an expansion of a MMO (subscription based) game cannot be free due to company bills, etc., you are completly wrong. The only reason an expansion costs money is for pure profit (why not make 10 million if we can). It is a good thing in a free market (the desire to make profit), however you miss a point. What if the expansion makes ppl leave just because the expansion has a price ? What if the curent playerbase is reduced from 4 million to 3 million ? And what if a free expansion would attract more players ? What if a free expansion would make the subscription number reach 5 million ? Wouldnt be more profitable to have a free expansion with 5 million subscribers then with a 30$ expansion with a 3 million subscribers ?? I think Blizzard's marketing department "is fading away too" ! PS: Indeed, CCP releases free expansions for their Eve Online with the result of a constant growth in the subscription database. And rest assured Eve Online and CCP will still be on the market when WoW would be laying underground right next to Asheron's Call ! PS2: Please forgive my grammar and spelling mistake. I am not an english native. Thank you.
let me see. Same background as yours, ok, i had a Vic 20, so i am a bit earlier eh?
I also loved all Blizzard products and i absolutly love WoW.
I really don't know why you hate it so much either, you say it is a cheap DAoC knock off, but it isn't. It is much more. Same way as you could say that Warcraft 1 is a dune 2 knock off. Is it? in ways, yes. In others not a chance.
And please, STOP using the "WoW has subscribers just because of the hype/previous games" argument!! I'm sick and tired to be called a sheep or an idiot.
If that would be true, do you really... no.. REALLY think that 4.5 millions people would play it for a YEAR just because Warcraft III was so good?
You didn't now did you? So what that makes of the others? Masochists all of them?
Secodn point: I would think that coming from the Spectrum era you should have clear the idea of the difference between Battle.net (mainly a finding game service and very few, if any at all, servers run by blizzard. most server are hosted by the players, with bandwidth paid by them and hosting only dozen or so people) and a MMorpg (HUNDREDS of surver clusters all hosted by blizzard with all bandwidth on their own pay-bill and so on).
But hey! don't believe me, everybody take CCP as an example, failing to see they are the exception that confirms the rule as everybody else DO make you pay for the expansion. The same DAoC of which WoW is a clone in your mind, made us pay for each and everyone of their big expansions, Shrouded Islands, Trials of Atlantis, Catacombs.. etc etc. EQ? of course! EQ2? they make us pay even for the mini expansions! AC? Yep, dark majesty costed money. AC2? Yeah... whoever bought Legions.... UO? oh yes there too. AO? indeed yes again! Shadwobane? yup again!
Expansion also make subscribers RETURN or RISE, at least for couple months, then the people that came just for the expansion leave and they might retain a few more, but surely not fall, you have your logic upside down here, don't you?. check www.mmogchart.com
Let's get this straight: CCP only product is EVE. they are completely focused on that. They have a small but loyal fan base and for how the game is structured they need much less resources in server hardware than other mmorpgs.
The game is mostly space with a few, easily repeatable and configurable items. The rest is EMPTY. you don't need hordes of talented artists to create beautiful scenery, you need just one that knows how to use space and its wonders.
CCP do not use retailers much. Their primary way to advertise the game is on internet and trough word of mouth. Kudos to them for a game well done, but we really can't base EVERYTHING on such a game. Yes, it is good, yes, the expansion is free, we kind got that the first time we were told of it.
Yes, the game is not for me. i hope you get it too
Ok.. i got derailed there a bit. I hope the post is clear enough. eh!
Have a nice day
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
You're an idiot. Blizzard has offered more free content in their patches than any MMO I have ever seen. I don't even play WoW anymore, I found it got boring and pointless,but you should still be able to see the value in spending $50 on an expansion. Name 1 game that has offered more free content thant WoW, and in addition free expansion packs containing months of work by employees. Be embarassed.
EDIT: Reading through this whole topic I'd like to add how funny I think it iis that Aseenus is still trying to defend himself after getting dominated countless times. Go away, dont complain about MMORPG's in MMORPG forums if you don't understand the concepts of how the games make money. If I wasn't lazy I'd give you a link to a shitty free MMORPG and tell you that's where you belong.
To the red text, Hell No. I wouldn't pay 50 bucks for an expansion ever. That just doesn't make any sense.
To the blue text, I'm sure if I dug around I could find one, but you guys would hate me for mentioning it again, especially if I took the time to post all the facts about the free expansions. As Volkmar so eloquently put, said company doesn't require as much money to keep the game running. So I'm going to stick with the response to the red text.
Hell No I wouldn't pay 50 bucks for an expansion.
EDIT: Incorrect sentence. But it's good now
--------------------------------------------- I live to fight, and fight to live.
All corporations [not just Blizzard] have the goal to make money. Almost every mmorpg has some type of pay-to-play expansion, so why do you think World Of Warcraft is any different? Considering that they have some 30-40 servers [I lost count], they have massive bandwidth fees, hence the monthly charges. Also, if they gave everything for free, they would end up losing money due to the fact that they need to pay programmers to code the new content, hence the 30 dollar expansion you will have to buy. Lastly, you don't have to buy the expansion. It is not necessary and Blizzard has said that the expansion will only add to upper-leveled players, in terms of content. So, unless you want to play as the Blood Elves, or you want those extra 70 levels, you don't have any reason to purchase the expansion, therefore, the expansion is not a necessity and Blizzard is not "money hungry".[/b][/quote]
This is infact how it goes. Like it, love it hate it or change it. If you feel that you can produce a game on your time, skills, and money without feeling the need to be compensated for but not limited to, your knowledge, invested time away from friends or family, research, monitory investments, server fees, marketing/advertising, mass productoin etc. Please feel free to change the market with a QUALITY game and i'm sure you'll have a bigger hit than any MMORPG to date bro
KillerTwinkie - That one guy who used to mod mmorpg.com's forums.
Originally posted by checkthis500 To the red text, Hell No. I wouldn't pay 50 bucks for an expansion ever. That just doesn't make any sense. To the blue text, I'm sure if I dug around I could find one, but you guys would hate me for mentioning it again, especially if I took the time to post all the facts about the free expansions. So to keep from being flamed, I"m going to say that WoW hasn't added any free content that is remarkable. You know like "Holy shit, that's free??" So until they do that, I'm going to stick with the response to the red text. Hell No I wouldn't pay 50 bucks for an expansion.
Then don't. No one here cares if you buy it or not.
You're the type of person that bitches and moans about the costs of everything in life. You want everything for free. Learn to respect that all things deserve a value - and if you can't, well, fuck you.
Originally posted by killerTwinkieThis is infact how it goes. Like it, love it hate it or change it. If you feel that you can produce a game on your time, skills, and money without feeling the need to be compensated for but not limited to, your knowledge, invested time away from friends or family, research, monitory investments, server fees, marketing/advertising, mass productoin etc. Please feel free to change the market with a QUALITY game and i'm sure you'll have a bigger hit than any MMORPG to date bro
Originally posted by Goob Name 1 game that has offered more free content thant WoW, and in addition free expansion packs containing months of work by employees. Be embarassed.
Originally posted by Ponzini This thread is pointless. They have already given much more than most MMOs through updates (battlegrounds, instances, etc.) and they will keep doing so. The expansion isnt free because it adds 2 races, a class, many instances, and entire new island. I mean come on think of all the models, sounds, etc. Most people cant even download all that. Someone has to be paid for this work they are doing and personally I think Blizzard is fair. They provide a solid content filled game and ur whining about another 30 bucks or so. Pay it if you want the extremly huge expansion or dont if u wanna stick with playing the old game. Please stop crying.
What rubbish is this? They took like 5 months to patch content, then gave nothing greatly new, gave battlegrounds (killed good pvp and gave no lifers/bums the game on a plate), no solid content past 60 unless you have 50000000000 guildies willing to go to the same place for 18 weeks on a trot.
Getting paid is easy for them since they have nearly 5 million subs paying each month. Downloading a few cartoon graphics and bumpmaps to wrap round OLD models isnt hard on even a 56k modem.
More of the same for more of the $$$.
kaching.
But then i guess it doesnt really matter to yer average WoW player, since daddy will be paying for it.
Goob. Youre the moron here. More content that any other mmo? o.0 were you limited to playing Second Life or something before? Take a like for like comparison then eh?
EQ2 v WoW for content patching. EQ had thousands fo updates and additions ( ie new stuff ) by the time WoW patched their FIRST patch. By time WoW was getting its 2nd proper patch and content update EQ2 was getting its expansion. Now you may hate eq2 and soe but hell you gotta see that blizzard are as slow as honey on a december morning ,with content.
And yet we see folk claming blizz has patched more content than any other mmo.../sigh. There should be IQ checks as well as cc checks these days.
Shut up. Really, just stop complaining. I know you wont, you'll try to justify your points 1000000000 times over again. Its simple. You dont HAVE to buy it.
And ya know, i hear time and time again how blizzard dropped the ball with WoW. How it doesnt compare to other mmo's.
At one point, i almost agreed. I seen a friend playing FFXI and I thought to myself, "Man i miss playing that game, im gonna cancel my subscription to wow and start playing it again."
I played for a whole of 3 hours before i remembered why i was so phsyched about wow.
No loading, unless its an instance. Big deal eh?
No other game have i experienced something like the flights on the griffons/bat looking things.
You fly over terrain, seeing other people and monsters. Actual movements of these people. While your traveling to another town.........ok.
The way quests are set up, and the ease of playing the game in general....
I came to WoW with 15 mmo's under my belt. I'd played DAOC, FFXI, Everquest, Ragnarok online, Lineage and lineage 2. Those are just to name the big named once. I played Fung Wang online, if anyone old enough reading this can remember, the name of the mmo was changed. I dont recall the name change now. Its not important.
Priston Tale, was ok.
Yea, majority of my mmo's were korean. Some not even ported in english. I LOVED Shining Lore, still wish a english version of it came out.
But none of these even compare to WoW....Why?
The experience wrapped up in total is far greater then any other mmo in the genre. Eve Online is a GREAT mmo for its genre. As is everquest and DAOC. But i didnt like eve when i tried it...Why? The space itself. I generally found it boring. Before WoW, i had all but decided my intrest in mmo's was gone.
My quote was," Another color of the same hamster wheel."
Refering to the "Grind" all mmo's have. Does WoW have grind? Yes!....but the way its dressed up is nice.
Tired of constantly questing? Run instances. Tired of running instances? Grind out trade skill levels. By the time your tired of that, questing isnt so bad. And its all rewarding.
Not to mention one very, very important fact. WoW has lore behind it from SEVERAL games before its time. Its lore wasnt randomly made up and not a very important factor like most mmo's out.
Theres tons of books and games to play/read. If your intrested in the lore at all it makes the game that much more addicting.
WoW is a quality product. And comming out with an expansion should only be looked down upon if the expansion itself isnt of the same quality.
And NO ONE here now can say that it isnt. Untill you play the expansions, and have a level 60 character in which you can enjoy the full benefits of it with, i say STFU untill you play it.
If the expac sucks, ill be among the thousands chiming in telling blizzard that they do, infact, suck. And they should be ashamed. I cant make that call yet though.
But, saying WoW is a shit game..thats just dumb. It makes you look dumb. Because even if your tired of the fantasy genre in mmos, WoW is still atleast alittle appealing.
I just sad to see all this hate and ignorance towards Blizzard and World of Warcraft. It like every fault in mmo genre is blamed on Blizzard. Like it's their duty to fix it. Noone seems to complain about SOE adding a expansion you have to pay for. Noone complains about SOE adding normal content for money. Noone complains about Daoc having expansions you have to pay for. Noone complains about any other game charging money, but as soon as this single company does it, they start. It's like everyone expects the company that from day one on has said, we are following the normal mmo pricing plan, should start not doing it. You whine like if Blizzard has promised you something for free and then change their minds and charge you 3x. Blizzard has never promised anyone a free expansion.
When fans and players of Wow say that Blizzard has added alot of content, they get flamed by people that appearently never have played the game for more than 2 days, but seem to know exactly, according to them, how much content was added. Just look at the guy who says Wow had it's 2nd content patch when the EQ2 expansion wen't live.
It's a damn expansion! Since when are expansions free?
And yes they are greedy just like EVERY other MMO company are, the developers probably care about the game itself, but the ones pulling the strings only care about the money, they improve the game to get more money, and that is VU Games in this case.
NCSoft are probably the only company who arnt money hungry. GuildWars free mmorpg just pay for expansions and an expansion hasnt been released yet to my knowledge. Coh and COV can BOTH be played with $14.99 and theyre BOTH standalone games. Lineage 2 has chronicle updates which are near enough an expansion with what they povide and theyre free.
I don't know why people care about money so much when playing video games and they ignore that almost every other form of entertainment costs much much more. I had a friend who over two nights of drinking with friends spent $200 on drinks which are completely useless anyway. If a person needs alcohol to have fun and thus have to pay $200 for it, then they have issues all their own. I've played WoW for 2+ months and paid a total of $95 and I've had so much fun. If you go to a movie, you'll pay $10 for the movie and $5 for concessions and you'll sit through either a good movie or a bad movie for 2+ hours. That $15 you just spent on a friggin movie that equals the money someone could have spent on a month of WoW. But what do you get out of WoW compared to what you get out of a 2+ hour movie (that may or may not be good).
I went to go see a theater production and spent $65 per ticket, that's about 2/3 of the money I spent on WoW, and that was for 2 hours of entertainment. If you want to take into account that I took a friend and payed for her ticked and parking totalling $165 for spent for 3 hours of "entertainment".
The point I'm making is that the utility video games give people on a per hour basis OWNS almost every other form of entertainment out there. It's just we don't notice because it's the normal price of a movie or a theater production or whatever. If we broke things down to a "utility vs hour" schematic we'd see that video games really own other forms of entertainment.
My point is stop complaining about $30-50 on something that will end up to be a few cents/ hour of enjoyment when you are probably engaging in other forms of entertainment that come out to be many dollars/hour of enjoyment. If you go to a professional sports venue you've probably equalled all the money you've spent on WoW and if your favorite team got trashed then you basically paid a hell of a lot of cash to have a crappy time.
And another point, if you can make money off of people without doing something unethical and immoral, then that is what should be done, that is the way America is. Stop complaining about money!!
Should Blizzard offer their expansion for free? HELL NO, it cost money and time to make, why offer it free? If you worked for something and put time and effort into it, would you give it away for free? I think it's better that they do charge for it, it insures or at least helps, that they'll do a good job with it.
Cryomatrix
Catch me streaming at twitch.tv/cryomatrix You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Originally posted by Shadow786 NCSoft are probably the only company who arnt money hungry. GuildWars free mmorpg just pay for expansions and an expansion hasnt been released yet to my knowledge. Coh and COV can BOTH be played with $14.99 and theyre BOTH standalone games. Lineage 2 has chronicle updates which are near enough an expansion with what they povide and theyre free.
Don't be fooled, NCSoft is making money.
NCSoft is doing very,very well.
But about the rest of this thread:
Every company in this industry is out to make money, except for the couple of open source projects that will never be one of the top tier games.
This is what these people do for a living! I wouldn't want to go to work all day long and make no money. People work for money! OMG What a concept. Noone cares about a twelve year old that can't use his moms credit card to pay for a MMO, because there are millions of other people that don't have a problem paying the couple bucks a month to play.
And as far as paying for expansions, I would expect you to. They developed new content, I am actually surprised they don't make you pay for content patches. Bug fixes and balances, I can understand are free.
Blizzard and Vivendi would not be in this industry if they couldn't make millions off this project. No major developer, studio, or distributer would be doing this for 30k a year. They would be programing enterprise management software or making sure that oracle database is working well for all those data entry slobs. In both examples they pull in close to 6 figures starting off.
It costs money for bandwidth, servers, employees, employee benifits (healthcare,vacations,sick days), phone lines, computers, software liscenses, 3rd party contracters, building rent, lawyers, security, etc etc etc.
Where do you guys think this money comes from? That other thing they do? No! They make games, the companies have bills and the employees have bills.
When you guys grow up and you go to college for 4-5 years, you can work for free and make some sort of moronic statement by being a poor slob, but for the sane people around here: we want to live comfortably and with nice things. No reasonable person says "I want to become a programmer or graphics deisgner so I can work for free, while I support myself part time cleaning toilets at my old high school and bum my student loan payments off my parents!"
Blizzard has provided plenty of 'free stuff' thus far, and I'd bet there will be more by the time the expansion is released. My only comment is that I'd rather see a difference in pricing structure for 'Adventure Packs' and 'Expansions'.
Ico Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
Originally posted by IcoGames Blizzard has provided plenty of 'free stuff' thus far, and I'd bet there will be more by the time the expansion is released. My only comment is that I'd rather see a difference in pricing structure for 'Adventure Packs' and 'Expansions'.
Correction, Blizzard has fixed bug and balance issues and added content which should have been in the initial release.
And once again we come with the argument on: "WHY THE #%^@ DO YOU ARGUE THAT PAYING FOR MMORPG EXPANSIONS ARE EXPENSIVE?"
- MMORPGs are very time consumming - If you still purchase other games while paying the monthly fee of a MMORPG you definatly need to get a life - The average teenager was known to spend over 100$ on video games a month! - The average MMORPGer should only be spending 15$ a month on video games!
Let's say for roughly 300$ you get a year worth of gaming!!!
A non-MMORPGer that spends 50-100$ a month on video games will easily spend over 1000$ A YEAR ON VIDEO GAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So what's better? 300$ a year or 1000$ a year? STOP BUYING OTHER GAMES IF YOU PLAY MMORPGS! MMORPGers is the cheapest gaming entertainment anyone can get themselves into!
Then don't. No one here cares if you buy it or not. You're the type of person that bitches and moans about the costs of everything in life. You want everything for free. Learn to respect that all things deserve a value - and if you can't, well, fuck you.
Are you ok? I was saying I wouldn't pay for an expansion that was 50 bucks. 15, sure, 20, sure, 30, I'd have to think about it, but probably. 50 just doesn't make sense because it's the same price as the retail game. lol I didn't think anyone would get pissed about that and actually say "fuck you".
And I don't "bitch and moan" about the costs of most things, but a 50 dollar expansion is something that "doesn't make sense." I respect that all things deserve a value, but as I stated before 50 bucks "just doesn't make sense." Not sure if you missed that part or not the first few times.
*By the way, if you read one of my first posts, I said that I was completely fine with pay 2 play expansions, and that I've bought a few in my lifetime.
But if one is ever 50 bucks, I think I'll go find another game.
And if you don't care if I buy it or not, why would you complain (and even get mad) that I don't want to?
--------------------------------------------- I live to fight, and fight to live.
Originally posted by donaldduck Originally posted by IcoGames Blizzard has provided plenty of 'free stuff' thus far, and I'd bet there will be more by the time the expansion is released. My only comment is that I'd rather see a difference in pricing structure for 'Adventure Packs' and 'Expansions'. Correction, Blizzard has fixed bug and balance issues and added content which should have been in the initial release.
Correction. Blizzard has fixed the few bugs that where in the game. They didn't have any big balance issues, it's tweaking of the balancing. At launch Wow had more content than most mmo's and all features the developer planned at launch, except honor system and battlegrounds. The content Blizzard added after launch is additional content, not content that was meant to be there at launch.
I'm amazed at the number of people playing this game. If you take into account the original $50 purchase, the monthly fee, and then the expansion coming out... well lets just say that Blizzard is really REALLY doing well. In my opinion they deserve every penny of it. They squeezed $65 out of me before my head exploded w/ boredom. I don't see how people can piss'n'moan about the prices. If you don't like it then don't pay it.
Lets be honest here, what else could you possibly spend $15 on and get 720+ hours of entertainment a month. Even if you add in the game and expansion costs nothing even comes close. You could go see 2 movies at the theatre. You could go out drinking one night. You could go on one half of a date. One music CD. Or you could stop playing the game for 3 months, save up the money and buy a console game with maybe 20 hours of content. Now just for fun i'm gonna do a little math. Let's say you squeeze 30 hours out of a console game. 720/30 = 24. 24 x $50 = $1200 for the same amount of time sink out of a console game.
Now i'm not even gonna pretend to know the costs of running a game like this; but with as many subscribers as they have i'm sure it's not cheap. Could they make the expansion into a giant free download? Probably; but are you gonna buy it anyways? Yes you are so really what's the point in complaining about it?
I could expand on this further, but it seems plenty of people have already thoroughly defined why OP's post is absurd. Remember your economics courses (have you had them yet?) T.N.S.T.A.A.F.L.
everyone is money hungry, once you get a dollar you want another , i know i do. all of you have good points, if you want to play a game that has no monthly or new ex packs to get for more content then go to guild wars they dont charge you for anything after you paid for that game , not all companies charge for exspan packs most however do, i personaly feel that all exspan packs should just be a downloaded thing and not sold since they useualy run the same price as the main game was and is more of a burden to those who play on a short cash supply. o and my spelling and paragraph structure suck so ha i dissed my self now you cant do it
Originally posted by checkthis500 Originally posted by Goob Are you ok? I was saying I wouldn't pay for an expansion that was 50 bucks. 15, sure, 20, sure, 30, I'd have to think about it, but probably. 50 just doesn't make sense because it's the same price as the retail game. lol I didn't think anyone would get pissed about that and actually say "fuck you". And I don't "bitch and moan" about the costs of most things, but a 50 dollar expansion is something that "doesn't make sense." I respect that all things deserve a value, but as I stated before 50 bucks "just doesn't make sense." Not sure if you missed that part or not the first few times. *By the way, if you read one of my first posts, I said that I was completely fine with pay 2 play expansions, and that I've bought a few in my lifetime. But if one is ever 50 bucks, I think I'll go find another game. And if you don't care if I buy it or not, why would you complain (and even get mad) that I don't want to?
It wasn't the price value that I was arguing against - for my argument doesn't make a difference whether it's a $30 or $50 expansion. Since the point of this thread was that the OP thought the expansion should be free, we're arguing against that. Not how much it should cost. I guess I should've done my research and calculated an average of every MMO expansion in the last five years so I wouldn't confuse you, and used that instead of the ridiculously controversial "50 dollar expansion".
Sorry, whenever I think of buying a PC game/expansion/software/whatever I estimate about 50 bucks for it. You could say it's an average. I live in Canada so the prices may be a bit different as well. I wasn't saying that while these expansions come out for around $30, you should still be willing to pay $50 for it. So now that's cleared up, we'll replace the "50 dollar" with "xx dolar".
Why are you arguing with me in the first place? I posted in response to the OP. You post in reply to me, so I respond defending the main argument still, and now you tell me I should scan your previous posts for hints and clues, that you might not actually be arguing with me? Remember who started this thread.
So I wasn't "complaining and getting mad" about you not wanting to buy the expansion. I was still defending my original argument, that you should be able to see a value in the expansion. The "xx dollar" expansion, which the OP feels should have a grand value of $0.00.
Originally posted by Ponzini This thread is pointless. They have already given much more than most MMOs through updates (battlegrounds, instances, etc.) and they will keep doing so. The expansion isnt free because it adds 2 races, a class, many instances, and entire new island. I mean come on think of all the models, sounds, etc. Most people cant even download all that. Someone has to be paid for this work they are doing and personally I think Blizzard is fair. They provide a solid content filled game and ur whining about another 30 bucks or so. Pay it if you want the extremly huge expansion or dont if u wanna stick with playing the old game. Please stop crying.
What rubbish is this? They took like 5 months to patch content, then gave nothing greatly new, gave battlegrounds (killed good pvp and gave no lifers/bums the game on a plate), no solid content past 60 unless you have 50000000000 guildies willing to go to the same place for 18 weeks on a trot.
Getting paid is easy for them since they have nearly 5 million subs paying each month. Downloading a few cartoon graphics and bumpmaps to wrap round OLD models isnt hard on even a 56k modem.
More of the same for more of the $$$.
kaching.
But then i guess it doesnt really matter to yer average WoW player, since daddy will be paying for it.
Goob. Youre the moron here. More content that any other mmo? o.0 were you limited to playing Second Life or something before? Take a like for like comparison then eh?
EQ2 v WoW for content patching. EQ had thousands fo updates and additions ( ie new stuff ) by the time WoW patched their FIRST patch. By time WoW was getting its 2nd proper patch and content update EQ2 was getting its expansion. Now you may hate eq2 and soe but hell you gotta see that blizzard are as slow as honey on a december morning ,with content.
And yet we see folk claming blizz has patched more content than any other mmo.../sigh. There should be IQ checks as well as cc checks these days.
Blizzard does add ALOT of good (bug free) content. Not only did they start out with more content than people could accomplish in over 6 months but they have already added onto that. Like on my server there is still only a few people with some of the legendary items. Theres only a few grand masters in pvp. Theres always some type of goal to go for.
Battlegrounds was a HUGE patch. That was a TON of content right there. Not only that they added a 3rd battleground also. They have events constantly being added and quests, etc.
Now they are adding about 6 instances, a new level cap, a whole new continent, a few races, a new class, a ton of new items, etc. They are expanding on the battlegrounds soon also. What more could u want from a little expansion? EQ came out with about what... 7 expansions now? None of them had this much content in it. The instances WoW is adding are huge also.
I dont play WoW anymore either. I also pay for the crap myself. If u cant afford to pay for the 30 bucks or whatever on the expansion then u shouldn't be paying the monthly fee. Its not that big of a deal. Thats almost the cost of food in a day and ull get months and months of more content in game.
Blizzard takes time on their stuff because they like to have their stuff done right and bug free. Which imo they are doing a great job compared to the other 20 mmo games I have played.
I want to say something about patch and world of warcraft... battleground, legendary items and stuff like that (legendary class) was supose to be there when the game was out. but they didnt make it so they release a version that they can deliver to us... read the features about 1 or 2 years ago of world of warcraft and you will be surprise how they present the game with : Big battleground and siege weapon ... anyway thats my word so take it or not i say what i had to say
Comments
let me see. Same background as yours, ok, i had a Vic 20, so i am a bit earlier eh?
I also loved all Blizzard products and i absolutly love WoW.
I really don't know why you hate it so much either, you say it is a cheap DAoC knock off, but it isn't. It is much more. Same way as you could say that Warcraft 1 is a dune 2 knock off. Is it? in ways, yes. In others not a chance.
And please, STOP using the "WoW has subscribers just because of the hype/previous games" argument!! I'm sick and tired to be called a sheep or an idiot.
If that would be true, do you really... no.. REALLY think that 4.5 millions people would play it for a YEAR just because Warcraft III was so good?
You didn't now did you? So what that makes of the others? Masochists all of them?
Secodn point: I would think that coming from the Spectrum era you should have clear the idea of the difference between Battle.net (mainly a finding game service and very few, if any at all, servers run by blizzard. most server are hosted by the players, with bandwidth paid by them and hosting only dozen or so people) and a MMorpg (HUNDREDS of surver clusters all hosted by blizzard with all bandwidth on their own pay-bill and so on).
But hey! don't believe me, everybody take CCP as an example, failing to see they are the exception that confirms the rule as everybody else DO make you pay for the expansion. The same DAoC of which WoW is a clone in your mind, made us pay for each and everyone of their big expansions, Shrouded Islands, Trials of Atlantis, Catacombs.. etc etc. EQ? of course! EQ2? they make us pay even for the mini expansions! AC? Yep, dark majesty costed money. AC2? Yeah... whoever bought Legions.... UO? oh yes there too. AO? indeed yes again! Shadwobane? yup again!
Expansion also make subscribers RETURN or RISE, at least for couple months, then the people that came just for the expansion leave and they might retain a few more, but surely not fall, you have your logic upside down here, don't you?. check www.mmogchart.com
Let's get this straight: CCP only product is EVE. they are completely focused on that. They have a small but loyal fan base and for how the game is structured they need much less resources in server hardware than other mmorpgs.
The game is mostly space with a few, easily repeatable and configurable items. The rest is EMPTY. you don't need hordes of talented artists to create beautiful scenery, you need just one that knows how to use space and its wonders.
CCP do not use retailers much. Their primary way to advertise the game is on internet and trough word of mouth. Kudos to them for a game well done, but we really can't base EVERYTHING on such a game. Yes, it is good, yes, the expansion is free, we kind got that the first time we were told of it.
Yes, the game is not for me. i hope you get it too
Ok.. i got derailed there a bit. I hope the post is clear enough. eh!
Have a nice day
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
The day World of Warcraft came out blizzard changed its tactics from
We are making great games to > We are reaping great moneys
From one of the most loved companies Blizzard plummeted to depts of hell to take the trone of evil from Sony... go figure
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
To the red text, Hell No. I wouldn't pay 50 bucks for an expansion ever. That just doesn't make any sense.
To the blue text, I'm sure if I dug around I could find one, but you guys would hate me for mentioning it again, especially if I took the time to post all the facts about the free expansions. As Volkmar so eloquently put, said company doesn't require as much money to keep the game running. So I'm going to stick with the response to the red text.
Hell No I wouldn't pay 50 bucks for an expansion.
EDIT: Incorrect sentence. But it's good now
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I live to fight, and fight to live.
[quote]Originally posted by Kiamde
All corporations [not just Blizzard] have the goal to make money. Almost every mmorpg has some type of pay-to-play expansion, so why do you think World Of Warcraft is any different? Considering that they have some 30-40 servers [I lost count], they have massive bandwidth fees, hence the monthly charges. Also, if they gave everything for free, they would end up losing money due to the fact that they need to pay programmers to code the new content, hence the 30 dollar expansion you will have to buy. Lastly, you don't have to buy the expansion. It is not necessary and Blizzard has said that the expansion will only add to upper-leveled players, in terms of content. So, unless you want to play as the Blood Elves, or you want those extra 70 levels, you don't have any reason to purchase the expansion, therefore, the expansion is not a necessity and Blizzard is not "money hungry".[/b][/quote]
This is infact how it goes. Like it, love it hate it or change it. If you feel that you can produce a game on your time, skills, and money without feeling the need to be compensated for but not limited to, your knowledge, invested time away from friends or family, research, monitory investments, server fees, marketing/advertising, mass productoin etc. Please feel free to change the market with a QUALITY game and i'm sure you'll have a bigger hit than any MMORPG to date bro
KillerTwinkie - That one guy who used to mod mmorpg.com's forums.
Then don't. No one here cares if you buy it or not.
You're the type of person that bitches and moans about the costs of everything in life. You want everything for free. Learn to respect that all things deserve a value - and if you can't, well, fuck you.
Perfect. Bang on. Correcto. Loved to hear it.
What rubbish is this? They took like 5 months to patch content, then gave nothing greatly new, gave battlegrounds (killed good pvp and gave no lifers/bums the game on a plate), no solid content past 60 unless you have 50000000000 guildies willing to go to the same place for 18 weeks on a trot.
Getting paid is easy for them since they have nearly 5 million subs paying each month. Downloading a few cartoon graphics and bumpmaps to wrap round OLD models isnt hard on even a 56k modem.
More of the same for more of the $$$.
kaching.
But then i guess it doesnt really matter to yer average WoW player, since daddy will be paying for it.
Goob. Youre the moron here. More content that any other mmo? o.0 were you limited to playing Second Life or something before? Take a like for like comparison then eh?
EQ2 v WoW for content patching. EQ had thousands fo updates and additions ( ie new stuff ) by the time WoW patched their FIRST patch. By time WoW was getting its 2nd proper patch and content update EQ2 was getting its expansion. Now you may hate eq2 and soe but hell you gotta see that blizzard are as slow as honey on a december morning ,with content.
And yet we see folk claming blizz has patched more content than any other mmo.../sigh. There should be IQ checks as well as cc checks these days.
Here we go..again.
OMFG WE HAVE TO PAY!@$@!#@$%
Shut up. Really, just stop complaining. I know you wont, you'll try to justify your points 1000000000 times over again. Its simple. You dont HAVE to buy it.
And ya know, i hear time and time again how blizzard dropped the ball with WoW. How it doesnt compare to other mmo's.
At one point, i almost agreed. I seen a friend playing FFXI and I thought to myself, "Man i miss playing that game, im gonna cancel my subscription to wow and start playing it again."
I played for a whole of 3 hours before i remembered why i was so phsyched about wow.
No loading, unless its an instance. Big deal eh?
No other game have i experienced something like the flights on the griffons/bat looking things.
You fly over terrain, seeing other people and monsters. Actual movements of these people. While your traveling to another town.........ok.
The way quests are set up, and the ease of playing the game in general....
I came to WoW with 15 mmo's under my belt. I'd played DAOC, FFXI, Everquest, Ragnarok online, Lineage and lineage 2. Those are just to name the big named once. I played Fung Wang online, if anyone old enough reading this can remember, the name of the mmo was changed. I dont recall the name change now. Its not important.
Priston Tale, was ok.
Yea, majority of my mmo's were korean. Some not even ported in english. I LOVED Shining Lore, still wish a english version of it came out.
But none of these even compare to WoW....Why?
The experience wrapped up in total is far greater then any other mmo in the genre. Eve Online is a GREAT mmo for its genre. As is everquest and DAOC. But i didnt like eve when i tried it...Why? The space itself. I generally found it boring. Before WoW, i had all but decided my intrest in mmo's was gone.
My quote was," Another color of the same hamster wheel."
Refering to the "Grind" all mmo's have. Does WoW have grind? Yes!....but the way its dressed up is nice.
Tired of constantly questing? Run instances. Tired of running instances? Grind out trade skill levels. By the time your tired of that, questing isnt so bad. And its all rewarding.
Not to mention one very, very important fact. WoW has lore behind it from SEVERAL games before its time. Its lore wasnt randomly made up and not a very important factor like most mmo's out.
Theres tons of books and games to play/read. If your intrested in the lore at all it makes the game that much more addicting.
WoW is a quality product. And comming out with an expansion should only be looked down upon if the expansion itself isnt of the same quality.
And NO ONE here now can say that it isnt. Untill you play the expansions, and have a level 60 character in which you can enjoy the full benefits of it with, i say STFU untill you play it.
If the expac sucks, ill be among the thousands chiming in telling blizzard that they do, infact, suck. And they should be ashamed. I cant make that call yet though.
But, saying WoW is a shit game..thats just dumb. It makes you look dumb. Because even if your tired of the fantasy genre in mmos, WoW is still atleast alittle appealing.
I just sad to see all this hate and ignorance towards Blizzard and World of Warcraft. It like every fault in mmo genre is blamed on Blizzard. Like it's their duty to fix it. Noone seems to complain about SOE adding a expansion you have to pay for. Noone complains about SOE adding normal content for money. Noone complains about Daoc having expansions you have to pay for. Noone complains about any other game charging money, but as soon as this single company does it, they start. It's like everyone expects the company that from day one on has said, we are following the normal mmo pricing plan, should start not doing it. You whine like if Blizzard has promised you something for free and then change their minds and charge you 3x. Blizzard has never promised anyone a free expansion.
When fans and players of Wow say that Blizzard has added alot of content, they get flamed by people that appearently never have played the game for more than 2 days, but seem to know exactly, according to them, how much content was added. Just look at the guy who says Wow had it's 2nd content patch when the EQ2 expansion wen't live.
It's a damn expansion! Since when are expansions free?
And yes they are greedy just like EVERY other MMO company are, the developers probably care about the game itself, but the ones pulling the strings only care about the money, they improve the game to get more money, and that is VU Games in this case.
NCSoft are probably the only company who arnt money hungry. GuildWars free mmorpg just pay for expansions and an expansion hasnt been released yet to my knowledge. Coh and COV can BOTH be played with $14.99 and theyre BOTH standalone games. Lineage 2 has chronicle updates which are near enough an expansion with what they povide and theyre free.
I don't know why people care about money so much when playing video games and they ignore that almost every other form of entertainment costs much much more. I had a friend who over two nights of drinking with friends spent $200 on drinks which are completely useless anyway. If a person needs alcohol to have fun and thus have to pay $200 for it, then they have issues all their own. I've played WoW for 2+ months and paid a total of $95 and I've had so much fun. If you go to a movie, you'll pay $10 for the movie and $5 for concessions and you'll sit through either a good movie or a bad movie for 2+ hours. That $15 you just spent on a friggin movie that equals the money someone could have spent on a month of WoW. But what do you get out of WoW compared to what you get out of a 2+ hour movie (that may or may not be good).
I went to go see a theater production and spent $65 per ticket, that's about 2/3 of the money I spent on WoW, and that was for 2 hours of entertainment. If you want to take into account that I took a friend and payed for her ticked and parking totalling $165 for spent for 3 hours of "entertainment".
The point I'm making is that the utility video games give people on a per hour basis OWNS almost every other form of entertainment out there. It's just we don't notice because it's the normal price of a movie or a theater production or whatever. If we broke things down to a "utility vs hour" schematic we'd see that video games really own other forms of entertainment.
My point is stop complaining about $30-50 on something that will end up to be a few cents/ hour of enjoyment when you are probably engaging in other forms of entertainment that come out to be many dollars/hour of enjoyment. If you go to a professional sports venue you've probably equalled all the money you've spent on WoW and if your favorite team got trashed then you basically paid a hell of a lot of cash to have a crappy time.
And another point, if you can make money off of people without doing something unethical and immoral, then that is what should be done, that is the way America is. Stop complaining about money!!
Should Blizzard offer their expansion for free? HELL NO, it cost money and time to make, why offer it free? If you worked for something and put time and effort into it, would you give it away for free? I think it's better that they do charge for it, it insures or at least helps, that they'll do a good job with it.
Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Don't be fooled, NCSoft is making money.
NCSoft is doing very,very well.
But about the rest of this thread:
Every company in this industry is out to make money, except for the couple of open source projects that will never be one of the top tier games.
This is what these people do for a living! I wouldn't want to go to work all day long and make no money. People work for money! OMG What a concept. Noone cares about a twelve year old that can't use his moms credit card to pay for a MMO, because there are millions of other people that don't have a problem paying the couple bucks a month to play.
And as far as paying for expansions, I would expect you to. They developed new content, I am actually surprised they don't make you pay for content patches. Bug fixes and balances, I can understand are free.
Blizzard and Vivendi would not be in this industry if they couldn't make millions off this project. No major developer, studio, or distributer would be doing this for 30k a year. They would be programing enterprise management software or making sure that oracle database is working well for all those data entry slobs.
In both examples they pull in close to 6 figures starting off.
It costs money for bandwidth, servers, employees, employee benifits (healthcare,vacations,sick days), phone lines, computers, software liscenses, 3rd party contracters, building rent, lawyers, security, etc etc etc.
Where do you guys think this money comes from? That other thing they do? No! They make games, the companies have bills and the employees have bills.
When you guys grow up and you go to college for 4-5 years, you can work for free and make some sort of moronic statement by being a poor slob, but for the sane people around here: we want to live comfortably and with nice things. No reasonable person says "I want to become a programmer or graphics deisgner so I can work for free, while I support myself part time cleaning toilets at my old high school and bum my student loan payments off my parents!"
Bottom line: STFU and get a job
Blizzard has provided plenty of 'free stuff' thus far, and I'd bet there will be more by the time the expansion is released. My only comment is that I'd rather see a difference in pricing structure for 'Adventure Packs' and 'Expansions'.
Ico
Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
And once again we come with the argument on: "WHY THE #%^@ DO YOU ARGUE THAT PAYING FOR MMORPG EXPANSIONS ARE EXPENSIVE?"
- MMORPGs are very time consumming
- If you still purchase other games while paying the monthly fee of a MMORPG you definatly need to get a life
- The average teenager was known to spend over 100$ on video games a month!
- The average MMORPGer should only be spending 15$ a month on video games!
Take this scenerio:
Month #1
- Buy MMORPG for 50-70$
Month #2
- 15$
Month #3+
- 15$ a month. 180$ per year!!!
Month #12+
- 30-50$ for Expansion
- 15$ a month
Let's say for roughly 300$ you get a year worth of gaming!!!
A non-MMORPGer that spends 50-100$ a month on video games will easily spend over 1000$ A YEAR ON VIDEO GAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So what's better? 300$ a year or 1000$ a year? STOP BUYING OTHER GAMES IF YOU PLAY MMORPGS! MMORPGers is the cheapest gaming entertainment anyone can get themselves into!
___________ ___ __ _ _ _
Stealth - Ambush - Hemorrhage - Sinister Strike x2 - Cold Blood - Eviscerate - Vanish - Preparation - Cold Blood - Ambush - ... you're dead! :P
Are you ok? I was saying I wouldn't pay for an expansion that was 50 bucks. 15, sure, 20, sure, 30, I'd have to think about it, but probably. 50 just doesn't make sense because it's the same price as the retail game. lol I didn't think anyone would get pissed about that and actually say "fuck you".
And I don't "bitch and moan" about the costs of most things, but a 50 dollar expansion is something that "doesn't make sense." I respect that all things deserve a value, but as I stated before 50 bucks "just doesn't make sense." Not sure if you missed that part or not the first few times.
*By the way, if you read one of my first posts, I said that I was completely fine with pay 2 play expansions, and that I've bought a few in my lifetime.
But if one is ever 50 bucks, I think I'll go find another game.
And if you don't care if I buy it or not, why would you complain (and even get mad) that I don't want to?
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I live to fight, and fight to live.
Correction. Blizzard has fixed the few bugs that where in the game. They didn't have any big balance issues, it's tweaking of the balancing. At launch Wow had more content than most mmo's and all features the developer planned at launch, except honor system and battlegrounds. The content Blizzard added after launch is additional content, not content that was meant to be there at launch.
I'm amazed at the number of people playing this game. If you take into account the original $50 purchase, the monthly fee, and then the expansion coming out... well lets just say that Blizzard is really REALLY doing well. In my opinion they deserve every penny of it. They squeezed $65 out of me before my head exploded w/ boredom. I don't see how people can piss'n'moan about the prices. If you don't like it then don't pay it.
Lets be honest here, what else could you possibly spend $15 on and get 720+ hours of entertainment a month. Even if you add in the game and expansion costs nothing even comes close. You could go see 2 movies at the theatre. You could go out drinking one night. You could go on one half of a date. One music CD. Or you could stop playing the game for 3 months, save up the money and buy a console game with maybe 20 hours of content. Now just for fun i'm gonna do a little math. Let's say you squeeze 30 hours out of a console game. 720/30 = 24. 24 x $50 = $1200 for the same amount of time sink out of a console game.
Now i'm not even gonna pretend to know the costs of running a game like this; but with as many subscribers as they have i'm sure it's not cheap. Could they make the expansion into a giant free download? Probably; but are you gonna buy it anyways? Yes you are so really what's the point in complaining about it?
There is no best MMORPG, only favorites.
It's fine. Learn2pay
I could expand on this further, but it seems plenty of people have already thoroughly defined why OP's post is absurd. Remember your economics courses (have you had them yet?) T.N.S.T.A.A.F.L.
It wasn't the price value that I was arguing against - for my argument doesn't make a difference whether it's a $30 or $50 expansion. Since the point of this thread was that the OP thought the expansion should be free, we're arguing against that. Not how much it should cost. I guess I should've done my research and calculated an average of every MMO expansion in the last five years so I wouldn't confuse you, and used that instead of the ridiculously controversial "50 dollar expansion".
Sorry, whenever I think of buying a PC game/expansion/software/whatever I estimate about 50 bucks for it. You could say it's an average. I live in Canada so the prices may be a bit different as well. I wasn't saying that while these expansions come out for around $30, you should still be willing to pay $50 for it. So now that's cleared up, we'll replace the "50 dollar" with "xx dolar".
Why are you arguing with me in the first place? I posted in response to the OP. You post in reply to me, so I respond defending the main argument still, and now you tell me I should scan your previous posts for hints and clues, that you might not actually be arguing with me? Remember who started this thread.
So I wasn't "complaining and getting mad" about you not wanting to buy the expansion. I was still defending my original argument, that you should be able to see a value in the expansion. The "xx dollar" expansion, which the OP feels should have a grand value of $0.00.
What rubbish is this? They took like 5 months to patch content, then gave nothing greatly new, gave battlegrounds (killed good pvp and gave no lifers/bums the game on a plate), no solid content past 60 unless you have 50000000000 guildies willing to go to the same place for 18 weeks on a trot.
Getting paid is easy for them since they have nearly 5 million subs paying each month. Downloading a few cartoon graphics and bumpmaps to wrap round OLD models isnt hard on even a 56k modem.
More of the same for more of the $$$.
kaching.
But then i guess it doesnt really matter to yer average WoW player, since daddy will be paying for it.
Goob. Youre the moron here. More content that any other mmo? o.0 were you limited to playing Second Life or something before? Take a like for like comparison then eh?
EQ2 v WoW for content patching. EQ had thousands fo updates and additions ( ie new stuff ) by the time WoW patched their FIRST patch. By time WoW was getting its 2nd proper patch and content update EQ2 was getting its expansion. Now you may hate eq2 and soe but hell you gotta see that blizzard are as slow as honey on a december morning ,with content.
And yet we see folk claming blizz has patched more content than any other mmo.../sigh. There should be IQ checks as well as cc checks these days.
Blizzard does add ALOT of good (bug free) content. Not only did they start out with more content than people could accomplish in over 6 months but they have already added onto that. Like on my server there is still only a few people with some of the legendary items. Theres only a few grand masters in pvp. Theres always some type of goal to go for.
Battlegrounds was a HUGE patch. That was a TON of content right there. Not only that they added a 3rd battleground also. They have events constantly being added and quests, etc.
Now they are adding about 6 instances, a new level cap, a whole new continent, a few races, a new class, a ton of new items, etc. They are expanding on the battlegrounds soon also. What more could u want from a little expansion? EQ came out with about what... 7 expansions now? None of them had this much content in it. The instances WoW is adding are huge also.
I dont play WoW anymore either. I also pay for the crap myself. If u cant afford to pay for the 30 bucks or whatever on the expansion then u shouldn't be paying the monthly fee. Its not that big of a deal. Thats almost the cost of food in a day and ull get months and months of more content in game.
Blizzard takes time on their stuff because they like to have their stuff done right and bug free. Which imo they are doing a great job compared to the other 20 mmo games I have played.
I want to say something about patch and world of warcraft... battleground, legendary items and stuff like that (legendary class) was supose to be there when the game was out. but they didnt make it so they release a version that they can deliver to us... read the features about 1 or 2 years ago of world of warcraft and you will be surprise how they present the game with : Big battleground and siege weapon ... anyway thats my word so take it or not i say what i had to say
akiosabt