11 replies to this topic

[enTranced]

11/2/10!

http://kotaku.com/55...o-release-nov-2

Anybody here going to be playing on the PS3?

I will be the backstabby stealth Pixie with either flight or superspeed.

enTranced - I always seem to build those....

[T_H_Phoenix]

enTranced, on 26 July 2010 - 04:14 PM, said:

11/2/10!

http://kotaku.com/55...o-release-nov-2

Anybody here going to be playing on the PS3?

I will be the backstabby stealth Pixie with either flight or superspeed.

enTranced - I always seem to build those....

I'll be playing, but the PC version.

[Ihaveaglitch]

Didn't see anything about a subscription fee, so is this going to be free to play or are those details yet to be released?  If I play it will have to be on the PS3, as I said earlier my computer can't handle much.

[enTranced]

Ihaveaglitch, on 26 July 2010 - 05:06 PM, said:

Didn't see anything about a subscription fee, so is this going to be free to play or are those details yet to be released?  If I play it will have to be on the PS3, as I said earlier my computer can't handle much.

It is a MMO so there will be a monthly fee to play. On the PS3 you will not need to have PSN Plus so it will just be the normal fee for the game. I have read this will be about $15.00 a month, but like most MMO's you can pay for more then one month at a time and get a discount on that price but I have not seen any details yet on that pricing.

For myself, wanting to play this game means I finally have to upgrade my PS3's hard drive so I have enough space on it for a MMO.

enTranced

Edited by enTranced, 27 July 2010 - 08:35 AM.

[Ihaveaglitch]

How big is the hard drive on your PS3?  I just bought the 120G version a few weeks ago, I assume that will be enough!

[enTranced]

Ihaveaglitch, on 27 July 2010 - 10:37 PM, said:

How big is the hard drive on your PS3?  I just bought the 120G version a few weeks ago, I assume that will be enough!

I have the 40G version and it was already getting a little cramped.

However, I found a nice article on upgrading the drive and it sounds painless. There is just a lot reaching for my wallet right now.

enTranced

[Virgil Vox]

I've never played an MMO before but this game makes me want to so bad. If I get it, I'll probably play on the PS3. I doubt my little rinky dink laptop could handle the game.   Guess I need to actually set up the Playstation network and all that stuff.

[enTranced]

Virgil Vox, on 10 August 2010 - 02:52 PM, said:

I've never played an MMO before but this game makes me want to so bad. If I get it, I'll probably play on the PS3. I doubt my little rinky dink laptop could handle the game.   Guess I need to actually set up the Playstation network and all that stuff.

If you do decide to set up your PSN send me a friend request!

enTranced

[Virgil Vox]

Quote

If you do decide to set up your PSN send me a friend request!

I will. I'm seriously thinking about doing it for this game. Though college tuition and having to cut back the number of days I work has seriously put a crimp in my wallet. Also, some of my friends who play Warcraft say that they have to join these large parties to complete some of the quests and bosses and it can take a long time to do it. If that's the case for DCU Online then I may have to rethink it. I wouldn't mind doing it with my friends but I have no desire to join a party of strangers and fight a boss for an hour.

[NeuralClone]

enTranced, on 27 July 2010 - 08:34 AM, said:

It is a MMO so there will be a monthly fee to play.

Hopefully that's something that will start to get phased out in the next few years. Guild Wars proved that you don't need a monthly fee to be successful and Guild Wars 2 is going to follow the same philosophy but with a fully persistent world/dynamic event chains. And yet no monthly fees. The game is also emphasizing the lack of a grind as a major selling point and even Blizzard is severely reducing the grind in World of Warcraft with their Cataclysm expansion. Add in the lack of camp spawning, kill stealing, loot stealing, player killing outside of the PvP mode, etc., and it's pretty much eliminating most of the things most MMOs do simply because they're MMOs.

It's a huge myth that the monthly fee is required to upkeep servers. The servers for the original Guild Wars are still being run using the money from the initial sales of the game and all other money from the franchise has been used to develop campaigns and Guild Wars 2. The monthly fee business model is mainly just to milk those that purchase MMOs for all they're worth.

I mean look at World of Warcraft. Assuming it has about 10 million players (it's actually up to over 11.5 million) who each purchased the game at roughly $50 a piece, that's $500 million in sales for just the game itself. That doesn't even include the two $40 expansions. Even if only half of the players bought those, that's another $200 million. With 10 million players, Blizzard pulls in about $150 million per month. WoW cost an estimated $100 million to make (about 3 times the cost of a typical MMO).

So after factoring in the ridiculous development costs, Blizzard still made at over $500 million in profit (I'm assuming the two expansions combined cost $100 million to develop) just from selling copies of the game and its expansions. Plus about $150 million per month. And the game has been out for 6 years. If you factor in the whole celestial steed fiasco that cost players $25 a piece to purchase that, that's several million dollars more. It hasn't had that number of players for the entire time, but if you do the math, I think the servers are more than covered. Blizzard employees' mortgages, on the other hand... That's an extreme example since WoW is the biggest North American MMO at the moment, but even Guild Wars has sold over 6.5 million copies (overall franchise) over the past 5 years.

I'm not saying it's a bad business model or that this game shouldn't be bought/played. It clearly works. It's downright brilliant. Charge $50 per copy of the game, give X number of days "free," and then charge $15+ per month to cover "server fees." And this game is looking rather cool. But hopefully it's a business model that will be getting phased out because it's antiquated, it excludes people that can't afford the monthly fee, and it's an unnecessary charge that does nothing but make the development company ridiculously rich.

The assumption that this game will have a monthly fee is probably a correct one. But there's a chance that more MMOs in the future won't have such monthly charges, especially since everything ArenaNet has said is in Guild Wars 2 is implemented and working. It has a real chance to break the genre out of its holding pattern.

(By the way, enTranced, sorry for the slight thread drift. It's just that you made a statement about the monthly fees associated with current MMOs and I had to say something. On second thought, maybe this should just be its own thread. )

Edited by NeuralClone, 16 September 2010 - 02:04 AM.

[enTranced]

^ Eh - DCU is a MMO and discussion of fees is right on target as far as I am concerned.

You make a good point and it should also be mentioned that aside from Guild Wars method there are free to play games that make use of micro transactions. I have tried some but the endless spam you have to put up with as well as the rich player with the god like superpowers who purchased all the cheat items make those games unplayable to me.

enTranced

Edited by enTranced, 16 September 2010 - 10:40 AM.

[NeuralClone]

enTranced, on 16 September 2010 - 10:40 AM, said:

^ Eh - DCU is a MMO and discussion of fees is right on target as far as I am concerned.

Fair enough.

Quote

You make a good point and it should also be mentioned that aside from Guild Wars method there are free to play games that make use of micro transactions. I have tried some but the endless spam you have to put up with as well as the rich player with the god like superpowers who purchased all the cheat items make those games unplayable to me.

Yeah, that's definitely another viable business model. But I personally can't stand it either. It replaces the typical MMO issues with a whole new set of issues that give rich players a major advantage. You often need to pay for every day items that should be given to all players. For example, in Atlantica, you need to pay for "licenses" to fast travel, party with other players, store equipment, etc. By the time you're done paying all those fees, you might as well just play a game with a monthly fee. It'd be cheaper and you wouldn't have players buying their prestige and in-game power. It has to be earned. It takes an ungodly amount of time to do that. So players that have more free time and play the game every day will still have an advantage. But at least they can't buy their power.

ArenaNet added micro transactions to Guild Wars around the time the Eye of the North expansion came out (so 3 years ago) but none of them give players an unfair in-game advantage. They're things like more character slots, name changes,  extra storage tabs, visual makeovers for your characters, gender changes, PvP skill unlocks, etc. The only one I'm not too fond of is the PvP skill unlock but that's being corrected in Guild Wars 2 as well (no PvP unlocks at all - everything unlocked by default).

Guild Wars 2 will have micro transactions as well but the items you can purchase will once again only be cosmetic in nature. They won't unlock anything from the core game either since the new skill system (based on the weapon you're wielding and class) has everything unlocked. Pets for the ranger can be manually captured, stats can be transferred from one set of armor to another, it doesn't cost real money to fast travel, gold can't be purchased, unique items that give you a special appearance can't be traded to other players, etc. Basically, all the features of the game will be available without paying ArenaNet anything beyond the cost of the game. And that's how micro transactions should be. Let people buy stuff if you must but make the purchases cosmetic in nature, don't apply them to core game features that everyone should have access to (fast travel, partying, etc.), and by all means, don't let players buy their power. Let them earn everything on their own.

And Guild Wars 2 will be having expansions but each one will just add on to the world, add need features, etc. (no new classes apparently). It's unknown if they will raise the level cap but I doubt it. That would unbalance the game and go against ArenaNet's design philosophy.

It does make sense why the monthly subscription model started though. It costs a tremendous amount of money to develop a MMO and originally server costs and bandwidth were both really expensive. So companies needed a way to make their money back and pay for the upkeep of the game. Now those costs can usually be taken care of through the initial cost of the game, micro transactions, and expansions. Ideally none of those should unbalance the game and make it unfun for those that aren't or are unable to afford to buy their progress.

Hopefully more companies will start to approach things like ArenaNet (founded by several ex-Blizzard employees dissatisfied with how WoW was being developed). Their philosophy is summed up quite nicely in their manifesto video (video on the lower left);

http://www.guildwars...n/media/videos/

At the very least, I'd like to see companies try new ways to handle MMOs that don't have subscription fees or unbalancing micro transactions.

(Please excuse any typos in this post. I wrote it all out on my phone. Somehow...)

Edited by NeuralClone, 16 September 2010 - 12:08 PM.