General Discussion

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by John.A.Zoid

$15 a month = $180 a year + retail cost and yet you're expected to pay for expansions even though people like Valve can keep updating their games without a monthly fee. Then on top of all that there are the micro transactions like the whole TCG type thing in mmorpgs such as SWG where if you want certain in game items the only way you're able to get them is by paying until you're lucky enough to get it.

Not only that but you're paying for features that should come as standard with your monthly fee like what WOW charges you for like changing your character name or transfering your character to another server. I mean to me that is something that you expect as part of the service you want under you montly fee and a standard feature you would want in mmorpgs. Most the time you meet people who play the same game as you but you're normally on different servers and yet your subscription fee doesn't cover that :\ People say oh but that $15 goes towards server charges..... WOW makes over $1 billion a year so really they probbaly could charge everyone $5 a month and still be making more than enough.

Yet soon we're going to enter in the territory where these companies start charging you $15 a month + retail + expansions + in game advertising + micro transactions + anything else they can think of and when are people going to say I've had enough of being taken a fool of? Guild Wars can survive without subscripton fee's so why don#t everyone else frop them if they expect us to pay for all this other crap? They still host every single server and still have to host every instance.

 

 

I do agree with the OP actually, Monthly fees are a ripp off. But there is light in the darkness, Arenanet don't believe in monthly fees.

Blizzard were actually having a lot of discussions if Wow should have monthly fees or not. The fees won at the end but 3 of Wows best programmers quited because it and started Arenanet after that.

Guildwars 2 will be a really massive MMO without monthly fees.

Until it releases however I do continue to pay my monthly fees, I do get ripped of in many cases knowing it (I live in Sweden, ok... Our total tax preassure is about 65% and second highest in the world. And I work in denmark, the one with highest).

Blizzard charges monthly fees which garner free content updates, GM services, and prices that eventually lower on the expansion pack and orginal game.

Arena net...every expansion and the original version of the game are the exact same price 29.99 (not counting some smaller expansions / add ons that were 9 to 20 dollars a pop as well).   That is how Arena net makes their money.  You can't buy a 'packaged' deal or wait for a lower price its always the same price and there are NO free content upgrades to my knowledge either.  Personally because its a heavily instanced game with zoned off / instanced hubs I would never pay a monthly for Guild Wars its simply not that good of a game in my opinion.    

Every game company has a different pricing plan and offer different options this gives us the consumer the decision to make on whats more important to us, what fits our priorities, what makes it valuable to us.  While the OP thinks monthly fees are of no value to him many people DO think monthly fees are of value including myself.   Most games by Valve that recieve content upgrades are simply a new map that lasts all of 1 hour to complete or less.  Who in their right mind would pay for that much less a monthly fee? Not to mention most of Valve's games are not dedicated servers either.   

When you pay a monthly fee for an MMO your helping to pay for the server, the gms, the host of none xpansion content upgrades, & of course bug patches something you don't get from non MMO games.

While I won't pay monthly fees for some games because they simply are not worth it there are how ever MANY online games I would pay a monthly fee for.  For instance I'd pay a monthly fee for Neverwinter Nights if it meant I got a dedicated server to use for my friends and I to play on.

What is of value is completely subjective when it comes to video games, the OP is right and wrong its simply is opinion and not any sort of fact.

btw anyone dumb enough to even fathom the idea of paying monthly for animal crossing has some wires crossed they're not even going to do DLC for Animal crossing and your extremely limited in activities.  

Left for Dead? 6 hours playtime solo, 4 hours co-op..

Tomb Raider Underworld? 8 hours playtime solo, no co-op.

Gears of War 2.....?

You need me to go on?

Trust me when I say MMORPGs are excellent value in terms of games.

I have managed to get 75 hours outta Fallout 3 so far though....

Originally posted by Beatnik59

Originally posted by Cabe2323

Originally posted by ArcAngel3

Originally posted by Kyleran

So, you're saying it costs me like $230 per year to play MMORPG's for an unlimited amount of time?  Yep, sounds like a pretty bad deal to me.

When will you learn that there isn't an amount of money that Blizzard 'deserves' to earn.  (or not earn).  They deserve to earn as much as they can milk out of their customer base.  If they could double the rates tomorrow and have everyone still pay for it, they would deserve it.

Its called free market capitalism and its how our economy works.

Now, my game, EVE does not charge me for expansions, so I guess I get a better deal?  But that's not why I play, nor would I care if they did charge, its just a nice perc.

In fact, if I was so motivated, I could go out and sell time cards for ISK , and spend even more money on this game.  Doesn't bother me a bit.

MMO's are the best entertainment value out there today, (cost me more to take my wife and son to the movies (40 bucks) last night than almost all 3 of my EVE subs for the month.

 

 

 

Unregulated, free market capitalism is directly responsible for the U.S. mortgage scandal and recent global economic instability.  Read about the Great Depression, and you'll get a better understanding perhaps of how capitalism requires monitoring and regulation to avoid exploitation and collapse.  Look at the current efforts of world governments to address the problems, and you'll once again see the importance of legislation and regulation to avoid economic implosion due to greed and short-sightedness.

 

 

Actually this is false but it is great to see how people somehow think that the Government can fix their problems for them. 

Lack of personal responsibility caused the current US Mortgage crisis.  Sorry if you don't have a job or if you had a job that didn't make a lot of money yet you went to the Bank and got a loan for a house that you couldn't afford it wasn't the Bank's fault.  They are trying to make money for their stockholders just like any Company.  It is the individuals fault. 

Not only was it a lack of Personal Responsisbility but it was the Government's intervention back in the 1990s that caused this crisis.  The Government forced banks to take on riskier loans because their weren't enough "Minority Homeowners".  Heck even the New York Times (A mecca of Liberlism) back in 1999 said that this current crisis would happen because of the Changes in Mortgage Loans that Bill Clinton put into place. 

Government intervention prolonged the Great Depression (and only WW2 really got us out of it) and it will prolong this current crisis as well.  The Market needs to be free and needs to adjust.  If these banks and companies were allowed to fail then new ones would take their place. 

That is how a free market works and it works well.  See instead of propping up the Big 3 car companies they should let them fail.  They gambled on how popular thier ideas would stay and they gambled wrong. 

The banks as well should of been let to fail.  Sure it would of been painful but in the long run it would of been the best thing to happen for our Country.  Instead we mortgage our Children's future so we don't have to hurt as much now. 

 

It is just Pathetic. 

 

There's enough lack of personal responsibility to go around.  People didn't have to take out two, three, or four mortgages in the hopes that they could "flip it" for cash out of thin air.  Banks didn't have to give out shark loans that couldn't be repaid.  Ultimately though, personal responsibility is something that can only be practiced by persons.  Institutions have no capacity to take personal responsibility, because they are not human beings.  We saw this clearly with Enron: the best thing about being in a corporation is that there's always someone else to blame, and we've seen a whole lot more of that from corporations lately, as you well know.

See, the problem is and always will be the relationship between doing an art well, and doing an art profitably.  It's something Plato brings up in The Republic: one who practices their trade for the sake of money can never be a good artisan, because a good artisan practices their trade for the sake of the art itself, regardless of money.  The problem with corporations like Sony is that they no longer (or never did) practice their trade for the sake of the consumer electronics art.  They practice their trade for the sake of money, which means they have no business practicing their art.

You see, when SOE decides to bait and switch, redesign SWG into an unplayable mess right in the middle of active subscriptions, and undermine the integrity of the game through virtual lotteries, it doesn't make people want to respect Sony's intellectual property in Blu-Ray.  In fact, it makes people not care about Sony's "rights" at all.  Is Sony going to go after copiers?  Perhaps, but every person they go after creates a new enemy and a new expense.  Not only that, but I really don't think they want the law to get involved, because then they'd be opening themselves up to scrutiny about exploding batteries, Trials of Obi-Wan, etc.

The problem with markets these days has very little to do with not being able to make money.  The problem with markets is that there's no mechanism in place to practice good arts, only profitable ones.  Instead of doctors who practice medicine for the sake of good health, we have doctors who practice medicine for the sake of money.  Instead of real-estate developers who practice development to make better homes, we have real-estate developers who practice development to make money, regardless of whether the homes are better or not.

Economics cannot model quality, only quantity.  The problem with our current economy is that there's no incentive to practice quality arts, only an incentive to produce a greater quantity of money, regardless of whether it actually exists, or not.

Well said Beatnik, well said :)

Also regarding government regulation and lending policies.  It's necessary to prevent those with power from contractually exploiting those with less power in a negotiation.  Banks have money, homebuyers don't.  They need money from the banks to purchase homes (i.e. a mortgage).  Banks can offer mortgages with terms that either exploit the homeowners' dependence, or they can offer mortgages that do not exploit the homeowners' dependence.  This is where regulation plays a role.  By the way, most of the people affected by the mortgage crisis were not purchasing homes to flip them for a profit.  They were purchasing homes for their families to live in.

Astute politicians raised concerns about some banks' lending policies years ago.  They foresaw the current crisis and drafted regulatory recommendations.  These recommendations were ignored in the interest of allowing the market to regulate itself.  (Also, it's public knowledge that many politicians received financial contributions from the banks mainly responsible for the crisis.)  Unfortunately, when the market regulates itself, it can do so in the form of recession or depression.  In this kind of economic climate, everyone loses; every single person that is connected to the economy (from Washington to Moscow) is affected negatively.  People that are only interested in the next quarter's earnings, or short-term financial gain, do not think globally, or long term it appears.  The banks that were taking advantage of would-be home-owners' dependence were also committing finanicial suicide.  To see this however, they would have to think globally and long-term.  Greed, by definition, doesn't do this.

To see someone blame minority home-buyers for the global economic crisis would be laughable if the implications of the statement weren't so horrifying.  Just imagine visible minorities being blamed for the global crisis and imagine the kind of appalling behaviour that might be a result--all of it completely misdirected.  No, I'm afraid minorities can't be used as a scape-goat for this crisis, and if you consider the history of this behaviour, you'll want to stop before you go any further down that road.

Also, I don't actually think government can "fix" this, and this of course wasn't what I was saying.  The main role of regulation is prevention, not complete re-stabilization.  It's easier to prevent the dominoes from beginning to fall than it is to stop them and put them all upright once again.  The best government can do at this point is attempt to mitigate damage.  The dominoes are still falling, and a lot of people are going to be hit by the fallout still.

Now, look at development in MMO's (some parallels).  Ask yourself which developers are thinking long-term, and which are characterized by short-term objectives (e.g. fast profits now).  Make a list if you like.  On the long-term list, you will find companies that steadily build on a solid foundation with incremental success.  I would argue that they understand the essence of Beatnik's post.  They deal openly and ethically with their consumers.  Their products function well and provide good entertainment value.  Their customer service is excellent.  When mistakes are made, they are acknowledged and corrected in a timely manner. 

You'll see many games (and service providers) that don't meet these basic criteria for success fall by the wayside, and you'll see consumers congregate in MMOs that meet these standards.   Those that like easy to learn, fantasy-based, linear questing, for example, are congregating in WoW.  Those that like a sand-box game with a lot of technical depth are congregating in EVE.  Just imagine how many more people would be playing EVE if they had a ground game to go along with space, as long as the excellent space adventure isn't adversely impacted in the process.

I still think MMOs can provide good entertainment value, if they and their online communities are managed artfully.  Evidently, there are only a few true artists in the field.

Right now all I'm playing are FTP games so I pay nothing a month for entertainment on those. Mostly since I dont have much time to play my favorite games but will do when I can. Is only $10 a month for ragnarok and so far is the MMO I like the most from all the ones I have played. Is the only one I keep active when I can out of the 30+ accounts I got in other games that most likely will remain like they are now.

You forgot to mention that Valve's games such as HL2, CS

Originally posted by John.A.Zoid

$15 a month = $180 a year + retail cost and yet you're expected to pay for expansions even though people like Valve can keep updating their games without a monthly fee. Then on top of all that there are the micro transactions like the whole TCG type thing in mmorpgs such as SWG where if you want certain in game items the only way you're able to get them is by paying until you're lucky enough to get it.

Not only that but you're paying for features that should come as standard with your monthly fee like what WOW charges you for like changing your character name or transfering your character to another server. I mean to me that is something that you expect as part of the service you want under you montly fee and a standard feature you would want in mmorpgs. Most the time you meet people who play the same game as you but you're normally on different servers and yet your subscription fee doesn't cover that :\ People say oh but that $15 goes towards server charges..... WOW makes over $1 billion a year so really they probbaly could charge everyone $5 a month and still be making more than enough.

Yet soon we're going to enter in the territory where these companies start charging you $15 a month + retail + expansions + in game advertising + micro transactions + anything else they can think of and when are people going to say I've had enough of being taken a fool of? Guild Wars can survive without subscripton fee's so why don#t everyone else frop them if they expect us to pay for all this other crap? They still host every single server and still have to host every instance.

 

you forgot to mention that valve games such as CSS, CS, TF2, Ect, all conntect to multiplayer by "Player server hosting" And do not use any central main servers... "That is the reason they can provide small patches and fixes without charging a monthly, not to mention when they is a patch or update for the game, it is very small because there games are already so good that they dont need "too many fixes" The reason there games are so polished is because the maps are generall meant for skrimish/close quarter and medium maps, not entire planets or solar systems/worlds with thousdands of simotanious players
 

This is the reason mmos cost monthly. So basically your reasoning is flawed.

Originally posted by Jimmy_Scythe

Originally posted by Sovrath

 

You can't assign a dollar amount on value. Or at least a blanket value as we all value different things. There are people who actually don't like single player games and prefer mmo's. To them it would be money well spent.

And yes, you are correct (in my opinion) that there is "more" gameplay of a certain type in single player games.

Gotta stop you here. None of the games that I listed are single player games. Yes, you can play against the computer, but you are usually expected to play against / with other people. There are single player games that you can play forever, Pac Man, Defender, Super Collapse, etc., but the games that you spend the most time with are going to be competitive in nature.

More to the point, I can play with and against other people without paying $200+ annually.

But there is an ineffable type of gameplay that you find in an mmo, one that is based on a social model.

So what about the new Animal Crossing game? No monthly fee. Way cheaper than an MMO.

When I fire up Oblvion and I'm in Skingrad it is very apparent that I'm in a single player game. There is no life. That is why I downloaded a mod that added population to the cities as it just seemed too dead.

But in the end, the actual value is what the player wants and is willing to pay.

And some people are more easily amused than others. At the end of the day, your average MMORPG player is still shoveling insane amounts of money into a product for an experience that they could get much cheaper in a regular multiplayer game.

If people really want/need a social aspect while being in some sort of virtual world then it very well might be worth it to them. Heck, I would have no problem paying double what I pay if the gameplay was entertaining and I found that it was something that I enjoyed. But then again, for me, money is also a way to make one's life more enjoyable.

Heck, there are people who will drop hundreds of dollars on the weekends at clubs. I would never do that as it has no value to me.

Same thing with online games. There is value there, it's just up to the player whether or not he wants that value.

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