MMOs

Eve can technically be free to play, Just takes quite a bit of time. (or a completely cold hearted attitude)

Other than that i find it hilarious that Free 2 Play models all use an "individual currency" So you buy the War$ or whatever they're called. I think it's so you forget that your paying for pixels.

 

F2P models will probably catch on with the release of Guild Wars 2. Normally in today's world, F2P means that your game isn't raking anything major anymore and your trying to scramble every last penny you can get before the game goes to shit. Eve can be free to play if you buy PLEX's with ISK, but they are a decent amount of ISK, so it's not ideal for a new player.

MMO is my favorite genre, and there hasn't been a big release since LotRO or FFXI. Well, FFXI came out before WoW, but lets pretend it didn't. WoW has been the dominant force in the MMO genre ever since it's release. No other MMO has sized up to it's challenge without having a major flaw, or screwing it up with a crazy pricing plan. Every dev takes WoW's ideas and tweaks them. Take Runes of Magic, WoW's F2P clone. 90% of the game is directly copied off WoW, everything from combat, UI, spells, everything.

There have been the occasional self-proclaimed "WoW killers" in more recent times such as Aion, Rift, or soon to come out SWTOR. All of them we hoped to be the WoW killer, but really, they were half-assed and in order to be the WoW killer, you have to have a full game ON RELEASE. Now that might be asking for a lot, but many times when devs release a game, it has decent early game content, then it slips away becoming too grindy toward the later game. Once you hit the max level, there is nothing to do, PvP? Your funny. WoW remains so popular because they don't focus on their sub-par early game, but keeps their already loyal customers happy by releasing more end game content, something that recent games forget to include. They market so you play the first month, then get bored and quit, but essentially you payed say $50 for the game, and $15 for the first month, and your done. That is essentially all of the money the devs are expecting to get from you.

In order to be a competitor with WoW, you need to release a complete game from the start. It has to be better than WoW's early game (which really isn't hard at all), but dev's see the success of WoW, and they copy the bland starting quests (go to X kill Y repeat) and they wonder why they aren't crushing WoW. In order to combat something like WoW, you NEED to have a lower price, there's no question about it. If you are expecting to compete with the giant, you have to be the cheaper alternative price wise. Lets take Apple, if Microsoft were to start charging the same price for the same specs as an Apple computer, do you think they would survive? No. Apple already has it's fan base, and will not settle for the alternative unless it is significantly cheaper of a price, much like WoW players won't pay $15 a month for crappy games like SWTOR (if you argue this you should just stop reading right now).

The F2P model has so much potential, and the one game that is actually noticing this trend is Guild Wars 2. ArenaNet basically created the F2P genre with the release of Guild Wars 1. All you do is buy the game and you can play online as long as you want? Sounds awesome, and it was, and still is. As I mentioned before, with the releases of games such as Aion, you play for a month and quit, spending $75. With Guild Wars 1, you pay the maybe $50, and play as long as you want. People see that it is F2P and would consider it over a P2P game, and would more likely buy it. Essentially Guild Wars would gain the same, no, more revenue than the P2P counter parts because people like the appeal of not having to pay per month. Guild Wars 2 is one of the only games currently that has a real chance of combating the WoW tyrant. With the soon release of WoW's Panda expansion, which is sure to turn off some players from WoW, ArenaNet can market a better game, heck, a 2012 game, over WoW's 2004 success. People will buy it because it is like a console game, pay once, and that's it. Then you can play whenever you want, which will guarantee it's longevity.

After the Guild Wars 2's success, the MMO genre has a chance to be revived. Until then, weak half-assed half-finished MMOs will continue to be made, only making the profit of a one month subscription, until people stop kidding themselves and realize it's a piece of shit.

As you can see, I can talk about MMOs all day, literally. It's very interesting to me, not only the games, but how foolish and how dumb dev's can really be when it comes to creating and marketing something.

If you want to see a list of relatively decent MMOs, check out http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/show/all/sCol/rankHype/sOrder/desc

Listed from best to worst according to many factors, although it's all opinion based, it's a general trend on how all of the MMOs rank. Orange ratings mean they are in development, and it's pure hype.

 

City of Heroes es #1.

 

Yeah you can get the currency ingame or something that lets you get gametime, but then it seemed but like a job than just a casual passtime.

Good post Bundt. I think another thing Blizzard has going for it is its Warcraft story, which is obviously massively and spans plenty back before WoW, one of the main reason WotLK did so well was because it was finishing off the Frozen Throne story arc, which was naturally very popular (and I think they did it well as well). People want someone they can rally against (see, WotLK, TBC) and Cata just didn't provide that at all, oh hi Ragnaros you're back again. Hey look a dragon you never really actually fight.

But yeah, on ToR I think you're a bit wrong on the WoW --> ToR transition. There seems to be quite a few people dropping WoW for ToR, or at least trying ToR. I have no idea how it'll be, I have no interest in spending another £30-£40 on a game then £9 for a month just to see if I like it or not (and cba'ed with the massive size of the beta client). On GW2 I'm hoping it does well, I'll probably try it. Something needs to kick-start the F2P model as it's sort of getting there (Champions, DCU, Lotro etc). The pay monthly is an outdated philosophy and games companies need to start realizing that.

 

People always drop their current MMO (WoW) temporarily to try out a new game. Look at Rift / Aion. The issue is that they take a few aspects of what makes an MMO successful and they attempt to play off on those features. The reason why World of Warcraft worked so well and still manages to work is because they still manage to push out content and patches which aren't buggy and overall have that refined clean finish to them. The interface is responsive and slick, the game has no real issue that detract from the game. People hope that GW2 brings something new to the table because it's what people want. They don't want the same generalised MMO over and over. I'm not going to compare them to WoW because at the end of the day WoW is effectively a copy of Lineage 2 and D&D.

As for the monthly system, I disagree with it being a dead model. It's very much an alive model and one that works if you can provide solid content for your game. Without the ability to do something on a serious note and provide an immersive world (see the next paragraph) people will not be willing to pay for a game. EVE and WoW and Aion to a lesser extent all prove that the model works as long there is more to come. To expand on the immersive world, many games these days that are MMO based instance each area. For example with Aion it's not too bad, but each major zone is its own Area meaning you have to jump through loading screens to get to the next section. With Age of Conan it's a case of loading screens errywhere. I believe APB has a system where each district has its own sections which are thankfully large enough to not kill the immersion too much.

The games that are successful in their own rights work because they pull the player in. World of Warcraft effectively lets the player explore multiple zones without ever seeing a loading screen. The only time you'll ever see a loading screen is when jumping continent or entering a party / raid (for obvious reasons). EVE Online does this well because each section of space is huge and again, you can explore without ever seeing a loading screen. CoH/V was also fairly popular because of this.

It's as much the immersion as it is the content.

 

Well Teddi is right, and the reason people are dropping WoW for SWTOR(or trying it because it's not out until the 20th) is because it is familiar to the WoW players. People also like Star Wars, so if they like WoW, and they like Star Wars, then they want the game to be similar, so SWTOR doesn't even have to try and initiate a new concept, they are sticking to the WoWish type gameplay, and they know the Star Wars brand alone will drag in players, so they are trying to cater to the biggest MMO demographic, and the Star Wars demographic, it's a genius idea.

Many will drop, but this rehash is no WoW killer, I give it 6 months.

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As for Teddi, the only reason WoW's P2P model works is because people are already max level, and they made it so easy to get there and start getting into the content that is the real game. You can't do that anymore, WoW is literally one of the only games that can provide a P2P model and have it work, because it has been tried and tested already, for 7ish years. People already know the end-game content is good, that's why most new people try WoW and pay $15 a month, because their friends who tell them about the end game make them keep paying, and once they reach it, WoW has a buttload of content for them, so they will keep paying. You can't expect people to pay $15 for 3 months just trying to reach the max level, thats insane. And once you reach it, your stricken with lack of content, decent players, or raiding concepts which aren't new or good at all. Sadly, many developers (mostly Korean) don't realize that NOBODY FUCKING LIKES GRINDING and that's why they have to go F2P because nobody is going to pay $15 a month to grind for the whole game with little to no endgame content.

In today's MMO world, you can't establish yourself like WoW did back in the day, now if you are below WoW's content, and are the P2P model, you can't build a name for your game before the game loses all of it's players because it's grind was too long etc. It's sort of like a monopoly if you think about it. The P2P model only really works for games that have established themselves long ago (WoW, FFXI, Runescape (yes people still play it), and EVE). If it has no nostalgic value, most likely it will fail as a P2P model.

 

World of Warcraft worked in the early day because there was a sense of community on each realm. Back then I knew people by name and we would all stand around chatting in Goldshire, having a laugh. You didn't have to level, you could have as much fun meeting new people and just dicking off which is where World of Warcraft truly exceeded. These days you go on a realm, you level, people come and go. There is no real bonding or teamwork or even the realisation that you have to work together for your end goal. The upgrades to the LFG tool saw to that. There is no learning and overcoming because the game is so easy. That is why the P2P model worked and still does work, because for those games that really go for it and add content and various ways of communication, it works. Why was SWG so successful until they thought the Combat Update was a good idea? It was because users could be as social as they wanted to be, chilling in those places where players could be a class that danced (not suggesting strip joints here) and it just became part of the game. After the Combat Update this changed and there was no more need for socializing as such.

P2P works if the game is a complete package, not some terrible asinine copycat game where they polish one feature and go CHECK OOT DIS NEW OSSUM GAME XD. A MMO should be as much social as it is gameplay.

 

Well in today's games, everybody is on their own in their cliques doing their own thing. Everything is given to them and they don't need teamwork or do anything hard to get by. That's the problem. Games like SWTOR are pseudo-mmo's because 99% of the time, your on your own quest, by yourself, watching 5 minute dialogs with npcs. Rarely ever do you work together with your friends. If you've ever played the other KOTOR's, it's basically that, offline, but with an mmo-like feel with the equipment and skills and stuff.

 

Which is the issue. P2P works in the right setting, these games are not the right type for P2P.

 

I think that you're all forgetting one large factor (the reason I don't play much in the way of MMOs), the fact that a large amount of the playerbase is comprised of straight-up dicks most of the time either trolling the shit out of you or looking to screw you out of stuff.

 

I've never had that issue until the floodgates opened in WoW for casuals.

 

Bumpage cause I feel like ranting about wow. But I returned to WoW for free Diablo 3 a while ago and Panda bear beta. Got my DK up to 85 and I love him, but I feel that the Deathwing fight has to be the most disappointing end to an expansion, given the fact that you don't actually fight him, the aspects do all the work, all you do is add control and fight his tentacles (insert dick joke here). I downed the lich king back in wrath and that was far more of an epic fight since it was just you and your raid, vs the lich king... even if he did 1 shot everyone at the end.

I can't see any interesting raid bosses coming in panda bears and I'm not gonna stand here and tell you that kung fu pandas is a good idea for an expansion in any way, but I am interested in it because of the new stuff that it adds.

I think they shouldn't have made raids easily accessible to new players since raiding should be for hardened players.

Just my opninion, take with salt.

 

D3 me gusta

 

I've been playing SWTOR for a couple weeks. It's coo'

 

The issue is with this is that they made the game so easy that any change to make it harder is instantly met with a "omg this takes too long im quitting". Unless they change the game up and keep it that way, the game is forever going to be sucky and not really interesting at all. I'm not planning on resubbing once my gametime expires (I forgot to cancel my last 6 months sub, so it expires now in march).

 

The latest tier is extremely underwhelming yeah, especially in comparison to both TBC and WotLK. Deathwing doesn't even have a dying animation, he just turns into pixels hurr. I'm getting bored of the current season pretty quickly, gonna stay till I get bored of Diablo 3 then cancel sub (Will just make it so they can't take money out of my account when the monthly payment arrives so they can't take anything)

 

I read this whole page the whole time thinking. I swear i've read this before got to zephyr's comment and facepalmed -_-

 

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