I miss 40 man raids, absolutely epic back in the day, wouldn't want to relive it though cause the memory I have of it is enough
Will MMO's Drop the Sub?
- Thread starter Kosmiche
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I miss 40 man raids, absolutely epic back in the day, wouldn't want to relive it though cause the memory I have of it is enough
The Guild Wars 2 micro transaction system works really well in terms of keeping the game balanced, which is the key thing with micro transactions i think. I don't mind paying full price (30+ quid) for the base game of future MMO's if they are like this.
I do think its really hard for publishers/dev's to pull off a sub based mmo that will stand the test of time these days. So i think we will see a lot less of them!
Still got my eyes open for the next MMO that just keeps me playing, The Elder Scrolls MMO is that game, but not going to hold my breath! Been burnt way to many times recently.
I do think its really hard for publishers/dev's to pull off a sub based mmo that will stand the test of time these days. So i think we will see a lot less of them!
Still got my eyes open for the next MMO that just keeps me playing, The Elder Scrolls MMO is that game, but not going to hold my breath! Been burnt way to many times recently.
Buy 2 Play, buy the base box and any expansions later on, not DLC, full on expansions worth of content, like the original guildwars did it, with a cosmetic micro-transaction store with ONLY cosmetic stuff, nothing else.
The perfect model.
Pitty a certain MMO started out with this model but is slowly eating away at it from the inside out with borderline unfair stuff in the shop and massive amounts of grind to make up there not being much content at all.
The perfect model.
Pitty a certain MMO started out with this model but is slowly eating away at it from the inside out with borderline unfair stuff in the shop and massive amounts of grind to make up there not being much content at all.
The thing is though that there are varying f2P models and the choice of which model to use can greatly affect the experience.
For me the best f2p model was one of the first -
LotRO where you had enough of the game given to you that you could actually play through to the endgame. The balance also meant that you could actually earn enough in game to carry on and get a look at the 'full' experience but it was more convenient to pay for access.
Compare that with the original f2p model for EQ2 - completely restrictive and to get anywhere in the game you had to pay - no wonder they have had to rethink the model and the the less said about SW:TOR the better
For me the best f2p model was one of the first -
LotRO where you had enough of the game given to you that you could actually play through to the endgame. The balance also meant that you could actually earn enough in game to carry on and get a look at the 'full' experience but it was more convenient to pay for access.
Compare that with the original f2p model for EQ2 - completely restrictive and to get anywhere in the game you had to pay - no wonder they have had to rethink the model and the the less said about SW:TOR the better
I don't think they will for the time being, but F2P is here to stay and game will keep coming out without subs. It can only be a good thing to be honest as it gives people a choice.
Gamers nowadays expect a lot more from their games and considering half of them come out a buggy, broken and unfinished mess are unsure on paying for a game let alone paying for a sub. Looking back at how some of the older MMO's came out they had their problems but had a strong core to begin with which allowed players to get stuck in and become addicted.
Looking at games now the core is significantly weakened but still drags players in but half the players are now gone within a few months. It's also a shame that no one wants to take a risk, they have all seen what WoW did and and want a piece of that pie but none want to bring out anything new because they are unsure how it will go down.
If someone brought out something completely new now it would be snapped up in an instant, GW2 tried doing it and were quite successful but could have done much better. Now when you look at what they brought out, it wasn't exactly groundbreaking but going classless and also having a masked questing system where it didn't seem like you were grinding and doing the same stuff as every other game helped a lot.
We just need someone to come out with something new and then if a sub is needed then it would most likely be warranted. I think the only company we will see trying to do that unfortunately is Blizzard with Titan, but then again we will have to wait and see.
Gamers nowadays expect a lot more from their games and considering half of them come out a buggy, broken and unfinished mess are unsure on paying for a game let alone paying for a sub. Looking back at how some of the older MMO's came out they had their problems but had a strong core to begin with which allowed players to get stuck in and become addicted.
Looking at games now the core is significantly weakened but still drags players in but half the players are now gone within a few months. It's also a shame that no one wants to take a risk, they have all seen what WoW did and and want a piece of that pie but none want to bring out anything new because they are unsure how it will go down.
If someone brought out something completely new now it would be snapped up in an instant, GW2 tried doing it and were quite successful but could have done much better. Now when you look at what they brought out, it wasn't exactly groundbreaking but going classless and also having a masked questing system where it didn't seem like you were grinding and doing the same stuff as every other game helped a lot.
We just need someone to come out with something new and then if a sub is needed then it would most likely be warranted. I think the only company we will see trying to do that unfortunately is Blizzard with Titan, but then again we will have to wait and see.
WoW's could be seen to be failing though as their numbers are continually dropping in the main, regardless sub numbers for WoW are irrelevent until the split between the Western playerbase & Eastern playerbase is confirmed by Blizzard anyway, its probably along the lines of 3 million in the West and 6 million in the East (which would put it on a par with GW2 in the Western Market).
Anyway sub based MMO's are, in my opionion, now dead in the water with the failure of ToR, Elder Scrolls Online will be the last gasp of that market before it too fails hugley and goes f2p within the year. GW2 has shown us that you can have a hugely succesfull f2p MMO that is just box cost aslong as its designed from the ground up to be F2P. I haven't played PS2 to know if its buy2win or just cosmetic MT's like GW2.
GW2 could have been a "success" even with a sub though, it's different enough from WoW to have succeeded, I guess we'll never know. I do think one of the reasons a lot of sub MMO's are failing and going to F2P (along side not being very good) is that the games in the genre canabalise each others playerbase. Until another IP comes onto the Market that explodes the MMO scene, like WoW did, the players will flit to each new launch before gravitating back to the game they left it for originally.
What is a success anyway? Didn’t the Bioware devs say that aslong as they had 500,00 subs they could hold their own? I think if a company aimed for 500,000 and was happy with that and the players were (like CCP has done with EvE) they could could be considered a success or are today's consumres going to consider anything that doesn't hit 3million sub number as a failure?
Will the PS4/console crowd accept a sub based game? I don't think so
I don't think it matters to be honest as WoW was PC only and made Blizzard a fortune.
Hardly, guild wars 2 was and still is no where near as popular as they expected and no where near as popular as your claiming it to be.
The amount of people who left within the first month was insane, the crappy Nemesis guild had 150+ members in the first month, then after that they lost over 75% of there player base.
Sub based MMO's are another barrier to help protect the player base from morons and children. While its not perfect, it acts as a big deterrent.
To be fair on the newer MMOs and give them their dues, they are better made than those of the past, even the ones in decline. The reason they had less issues with player retention was more likely down to lack of choice and willingness to put up with what we had because of that lack of choice. Given how many MMOs (both free and sub) are available now it's hardly suprising people leave when they find things broken or just undeveloped.
Sales figures are not the same as subscriber figures. ANet has never mentioned how many active players they have, and I can guarantee it will be a great deal lower than sales. Even if WoW reached those numbers it would be a safe assumption that it's box sales exceeded it's subs by a fair margin.
I do agree though that what gamers call a failure is often a success, though the companies involved probably expected more (even WAR technically is a success, though try finding players that agree without them playing
).
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Sold over 3 million boxes in 6 odd months, no other western MMO apart from WoW has reached those numbers that quickly. Its exceeded their expections, and is the 2nd highest concurrent user MMO on the market (once again behind WoW). Yes players stopped playing after the 1st few months, but the beauty of a no sub MMO is those players come back with zero barriers to pick up and play again which is why concurrent numbers have/had been rising since January, they might have dipped again as there has been a glut of excellent games hitting the market in recent weeks.
No they arent
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Thats the problem with other business models for companies, since there is less investment they have less hold over their customers, the barrier to entry is lower but there is less incentive to stay.
Players might come back at any time it's true but realistically this will mostly happen at an expansion release as would happen in most P2P games. Once players leave through boredom many don't return until there is an incentive to do so, especially with the choice in the market now.
Source? ANet have yet to mention concurrent users since launch to my knowledge. Or is this speculation based on personal experience or x-fire?
Edit: Looked through can only find users at launch and a mention as to how it feels busier but no official concurrent user info
Can see lots of referneces to box sales though...
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I posted a few links in the GW2 thread (I think) around the start of March from memory, a quick google will give you them.
But its also based on personal experience, I keep getting thrown into overflow servers when I've logged on, admittedly in the past week or so I've only been on once or twice as I'm too busy with Tomb Raider and now Bioshock
Wow is full of these..Wow is the most successful mmo p2p and has the WORST most childish and moronic, whiny fan base in any game ever who turned a great game (vanilla/tbc) into the shambles it is.
Great deterrent!
I'm pretty sure Latex has used the "subs stop the kids from playing" argument before, conveniently ignoring WoW's community.
Soldato
- Joined
- 7 Feb 2011
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I wish I could conveniently ignore WoW's community, especially when I'm playing.
Luckily, Blizzard's "get people out into the world" ethos for this expansion means I can park on Troll Dailies Isle or in my farmhouse instead of in a capital city or sanctuary. This allows me to avoid the Lovecraftian horror that is Trade Chat.
Regardless, Asking mum to pay £30 + £10 a month or £30 and thats it, as a parent i know exactly which one.
Maybe not a deterrent but more of a restriction making it harder for the children to play.
I kind of want the best of both Worlds. I'd like F2P ideally as now I'm more of a casual gamer rather than someone who spends 10/12 hours a day on an MMO (those days are sadly gone).
However I'd like the F2P MMO not to have all of the restrictions or the 'pay to win' ethos that many have. SWTOR doesn't work as a F2P as it lowers the XP you gain and thus the quest lines expect you to be a higher level - the only way is to grind XP to get to the level so that you can continue on (obviously without buying stuff).
Personally the F2P model is an interesting concept - if the server is busy all of the time then people are more than likely to stick around. I think this is why we haven't seen a WoW 2 because they don't want to potentially break it and they just feed the players little bits to make it slightly different but without the basic formula being changed. Also trying to get people to pay a monthly subscription for WoW 2 would be interesting.
M.
However I'd like the F2P MMO not to have all of the restrictions or the 'pay to win' ethos that many have. SWTOR doesn't work as a F2P as it lowers the XP you gain and thus the quest lines expect you to be a higher level - the only way is to grind XP to get to the level so that you can continue on (obviously without buying stuff).
Personally the F2P model is an interesting concept - if the server is busy all of the time then people are more than likely to stick around. I think this is why we haven't seen a WoW 2 because they don't want to potentially break it and they just feed the players little bits to make it slightly different but without the basic formula being changed. Also trying to get people to pay a monthly subscription for WoW 2 would be interesting.
M.