The new everquest looks so terrible. I guess their budget couldnt really be all that with their last release and flop. I think Bless and Black desert are the only 2 worth playing BUT don't hold your breathe for Korean MMO's. They are always 5-10years late from releasing in NA. Look at Aion and Tera both 5+ years after their predicted release date. Even worse, look at Kingdom Under Fire II which is been on hold for...13yrs and counting. I still want to play it...

Abr4hn wrote: »

Gidorick wrote: »

ESO being a subscription MMO required gamers to make a commitment up front. By doing this, ZOS was creating a history with players. Players that subscribed not only felt a sense of ownership and pride, they also felt a sense of belonging and kinship because the people they were playing with had also made that commitment.

Each month that passed, many players renewed their subscription and that sense of pride, belonging, and history grew. There weren't many choices for players who preferred subscription MMOs and the fact that ESO was one of them made it feel special. There seemed to be a sense of exclusivity that players felt by being an ESO player.

Ummm, no. The basic premise of your post is flawed.

Your stated belief is that people make some sort of emotional commitment when paying a monthly fee for a service, in this case by subscribing to a game.

Do you also get a sense of "ownership and pride" for Comcast when you pay your cable bill? Do you feel "pride, belonging and history" for Verizon when you pay your monthly phone bill? If that is true, you really need to get out of the basement more often.

As for the rest of the post... the second flaw in your argument is that all the competition among the MMO's listed only exists when ESO goes B2P, while it was magically free from competition when it was P2P.

Wrong again. Each of those games is and always has been fighting for market share relative to the others. The games themselves are what people care about, and the particular business model is secondary.

As an example, I am not going to play a game that sucks just because it is F2P. Conversely, I will cough up a monthly subscription for a game I like, even if that is not my preferred way to pay for a game.

So basically, the entire post was just another elaborate version of P2P = good, B2P = bad.

/golfclap.

When a player pays up front they are making a prior commitment. Comparing an MMO to a cable service is ludicrous. An MMO includes a community and a world that the player experiences and grows with (levels and such). It's a personal connection that can't be found with non-interactive media.

While it is true that all MMOs are in competition with one another there are certain gamers that will NOT pay a subscription. Ever. There are also certain gamers that seek out a subscription because they really don't want to play with those that refuse to pay a subscription. It's in this sense, ESO is NOW in competition with a TON of B2P/F2P MMOs where before, it was not. The people that ZOS is looking to entice has a WHOLE bunch of other options where before, with a subscription service, the target audience weren't the type to play the available B2P/F2P games out there.

There is, however, a third type of gamer, those who will play what they want no matter if its P2P/B2P/F2P. You are this type of gamer. There are many who are not.

As for the "meaning" of the post, it was meant to simply say "hey... since we're not paying for a subscription anymore... here's some other games we can go play instead".

and compare ESOs character creation to Black Desert:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TP4L1vHfpk

These two games don't seem to be separated by 1...2 years. They are separated by 5 or 6 (in terms of technology).

DDuke wrote: »

Arato wrote: »

You felt PRIDE over buying a game and subbing?

Don't be ridiculous.

Only thing I felt from paying my sub every month is an OBLIGATION to play the game, even if I didn't feel like it at the time, because I'm spending money on it.

I also felt like I was being hustled, because even if I buy things in GW2's gem store, I spend less than $15 a month (maybe $10 every other month or so), and I spend way more hours in GW2, plus whatever I bought in the GW2 gem store, I get to use, like, a new outfit/cosmetic armor set, or a new infinite use mining pick or a new mini pet, etc, all while I got to log in and play for no cost at all.

Here I fork over more money, and get nothing to show for it. Why?

Because here at ESO they announced they're going to turn the entire character progression system on its head.. so I didn't want to get too invested into the Veteran Rank system only for it to change so drastically on me.

I'm glad the system is going to change and I can't wait to get back to playing regularly, but feeling PRIDE at being hustled every month for a subscription?

Give me a break.

B2P is an infinitely better system than Subscription.

I'm actually excited for the B2P switch. Most of my favorite online RPG's have been B2P, not subscription.

Diablo 2, Diablo 3, Guild Wars, and Guild Wars 2. All provided thousands of hours of entertainment without a subscription at reasonable costs.

Meanwhile I shudder to think about how much money I spent on playing WoW for 2 years. LotRO is kind of a mix because I got a lifetime account and in the long run it more than paid for itself.

Feeling pride and exclusivity about being hoodwinked... now I've heard everything.

B2P is a scam, just like F2P.
Why do you think they changed the model? It's to milk more money out of you & other players (especially the ones that play a lot).

I can see the only ones enjoying B2P being the so-called "gamers" that play a couple hours a week & purchase a fancy pony or costume, who don't care about frequent (and meaningful) content updates, because those don't fit their play schedule anyhow.

But I guess B2P is a cheaper version for them (you do belong in this category, right?), and now provides a cheaper experience for everyone (not only them).

This has already been proven by less frequent content deliveries (geared towards the ultra-casuals with scaling content, a la GW2), "shortcuts" in Cash Shop & overall dumbing down of the game.

It's like dining in a fine restaurant (subscription) to dining in some trashy kiosk (B2P/F2P). Sure, the other one might be cheaper, but so is the experience.


But hey, enjoy "Skyrim with friends".

In 29 months, Guild Wars 2 had 41 content updates (new areas, dungeons, living story, and others). How many has ESO, a subscription game, had in almost 10 months?

DDuke wrote: »

eisberg wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Arato wrote: »

You felt PRIDE over buying a game and subbing?

Don't be ridiculous.

Only thing I felt from paying my sub every month is an OBLIGATION to play the game, even if I didn't feel like it at the time, because I'm spending money on it.

I also felt like I was being hustled, because even if I buy things in GW2's gem store, I spend less than $15 a month (maybe $10 every other month or so), and I spend way more hours in GW2, plus whatever I bought in the GW2 gem store, I get to use, like, a new outfit/cosmetic armor set, or a new infinite use mining pick or a new mini pet, etc, all while I got to log in and play for no cost at all.

Here I fork over more money, and get nothing to show for it. Why?

Because here at ESO they announced they're going to turn the entire character progression system on its head.. so I didn't want to get too invested into the Veteran Rank system only for it to change so drastically on me.

I'm glad the system is going to change and I can't wait to get back to playing regularly, but feeling PRIDE at being hustled every month for a subscription?

Give me a break.

B2P is an infinitely better system than Subscription.

I'm actually excited for the B2P switch. Most of my favorite online RPG's have been B2P, not subscription.

Diablo 2, Diablo 3, Guild Wars, and Guild Wars 2. All provided thousands of hours of entertainment without a subscription at reasonable costs.

Meanwhile I shudder to think about how much money I spent on playing WoW for 2 years. LotRO is kind of a mix because I got a lifetime account and in the long run it more than paid for itself.

Feeling pride and exclusivity about being hoodwinked... now I've heard everything.

B2P is a scam, just like F2P.
Why do you think they changed the model? It's to milk more money out of you & other players (especially the ones that play a lot).

I can see the only ones enjoying B2P being the so-called "gamers" that play a couple hours a week & purchase a fancy pony or costume, who don't care about frequent (and meaningful) content updates, because those don't fit their play schedule anyhow.

But I guess B2P is a cheaper version for them (you do belong in this category, right?), and now provides a cheaper experience for everyone (not only them).

This has already been proven by less frequent content deliveries (geared towards the ultra-casuals with scaling content, a la GW2), "shortcuts" in Cash Shop & overall dumbing down of the game.

It's like dining in a fine restaurant (subscription) to dining in some trashy kiosk (B2P/F2P). Sure, the other one might be cheaper, but so is the experience.


But hey, enjoy "Skyrim with friends".

In 29 months, Guild Wars 2 had 41 content updates (new areas, dungeons, living story, and others). How many has ESO, a subscription game, had in almost 10 months?

Sorry, but ESO had more content added to it last year alone

You can't really compare 2-3 hour long quests (going by that, GW got around 100-200 hours of questing in 2 years) to trials & real dungeons (not the chaotic crapfests in GW2).

That said, ESO is quite a bad example of a subscription game, because they purposefully withheld content in order to release it later as DLC (courtesy of your beloved B2P model), and development crawled due to building Cash Shop items (they have admitted this in the latest AUA).

If you want a good example, you need to look no further than vanilla WoW.

Updates every 2-3 months that brought hundreds of hours of gameplay for every type of player, not 3-hour long quests.

Seriously, I have no idea how you can defend GW2's update schedule. There is not one gamer worth his salt who'd cite GW2 as a good example, unless you're one of those folks who play 2 hours a week (enough to do that one "content update" you get).

They change some bushes around & add a quest, calling it an update while ripping off customers in the Cash Shop, ridiculous.

Obviously you have never played Guild Wars 2. You have to make complete exagerations cause Guild Wars 2 actually proves you wrong in just about every way, and that threatens you, so you have to make up exaggerations.

1- The store doesn't rip you off, not even close, not even needed.

2- The Living story has more then just the quest, there are other things to go along with that take longer than 3 hours.

3- What you say about the dungeons is your opinion. I find the dungeons a whole lot of fun and challenging, more challenging than most dungeons of other MMOs I have played.

WoW Vanilla isn't a good example. I played that game from 2005 to 2006, they had next to nil content updates for the non raider. Considering that a developer not to long before the first expansion said that only 15% of their player base has actually entered Molten Core, and that even less completed it, tells you they were making content for an extremely small minority, and effectively made nothing for the non raiders. And the content they did make, was meant to be played 1 time per week and repeated over and over again, once it was on farm, it took only a few hours to complete the same content one was doing for 1 time a week for weeks before that.

There are millions of players currently subscribed to games around the world. Subscription as a business model is by no means dead. Subscriptions are the most attractive business model to pursue as the business already knows their revenue each month and can allocate funds accordingly and it's more sustainable for long term(if there is solid planning).

It's up to the business behind the subscription game to make it work. Look at FF14. It failed in it's first incarnation and yet now is the most successful subscription game in recent years. Play it and you will know why. Square relaunched an extremely polished game and they just keep on improving it. They have a really good relationship with their community and the listen to the player base. FF14 has 500k subs and growing.

How can anyone say that subscription games are a thing of the past? It's companies that put profits before the games they develop that screw up subscriptions, after all, nobody I know will pay $15 a month to play an average mmo.


Edit: Speeling
Edit again: Sub numbers

Gidorick wrote: »

jeevin wrote: »

There are millions of players currently subscribed to games around the world. Subscription as a business model is by no means dead. Subscriptions are the most attractive business model to pursue as the business already knows their revenue each month and can allocate funds accordingly and it's more sustainable for long term(if there is solid planning).

It's up to the business behind the subscription game to make it work. Look at FF14. It failed in it's first incarnation and yet now is the most successful subscription game in recent years. Play it and you will know why. Square relaunched an extremely polished game and they just keep on improving it. They have a really good relationship with their community and the listen to the player base. It looks like FF14 will hit 3million subs soon.

How can anyone say that subscription games are a thing of the past? It's companies that put profits before the games they develop that screw up subscriptions after all nobody I know will pay $15 a month to play an average mmo.


Edit: Speeling

Can you site this? I ask because recently in Square-Enix's annual report they state:

"Three major MMO titles—“FINAL FANTASY XIV: A
REALM REBORN,” which began operation last August,
“DRAGON QUEST X,” which was launched in August
2012, and “FINAL FANTASY XI,” which has entered its
thirteenth year of operation—maintain nearly 1,000,000
paying subscribers all together"

That's 1 million for all three games... so I'm curious where you get your 3 million subs figure.

http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/pdf/ar_2014_01en.pdf

EDIT: added source

I Googled "FF14 current subs" so I'm quoting any information some guy on the net posted. It's by far the most reliable source/sauce. Edited sub numbers

DDuke wrote: »

eisberg wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

eisberg wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Arato wrote: »

You felt PRIDE over buying a game and subbing?

Don't be ridiculous.

Only thing I felt from paying my sub every month is an OBLIGATION to play the game, even if I didn't feel like it at the time, because I'm spending money on it.

I also felt like I was being hustled, because even if I buy things in GW2's gem store, I spend less than $15 a month (maybe $10 every other month or so), and I spend way more hours in GW2, plus whatever I bought in the GW2 gem store, I get to use, like, a new outfit/cosmetic armor set, or a new infinite use mining pick or a new mini pet, etc, all while I got to log in and play for no cost at all.

Here I fork over more money, and get nothing to show for it. Why?

Because here at ESO they announced they're going to turn the entire character progression system on its head.. so I didn't want to get too invested into the Veteran Rank system only for it to change so drastically on me.

I'm glad the system is going to change and I can't wait to get back to playing regularly, but feeling PRIDE at being hustled every month for a subscription?

Give me a break.

B2P is an infinitely better system than Subscription.

I'm actually excited for the B2P switch. Most of my favorite online RPG's have been B2P, not subscription.

Diablo 2, Diablo 3, Guild Wars, and Guild Wars 2. All provided thousands of hours of entertainment without a subscription at reasonable costs.

Meanwhile I shudder to think about how much money I spent on playing WoW for 2 years. LotRO is kind of a mix because I got a lifetime account and in the long run it more than paid for itself.

Feeling pride and exclusivity about being hoodwinked... now I've heard everything.

B2P is a scam, just like F2P.
Why do you think they changed the model? It's to milk more money out of you & other players (especially the ones that play a lot).

I can see the only ones enjoying B2P being the so-called "gamers" that play a couple hours a week & purchase a fancy pony or costume, who don't care about frequent (and meaningful) content updates, because those don't fit their play schedule anyhow.

But I guess B2P is a cheaper version for them (you do belong in this category, right?), and now provides a cheaper experience for everyone (not only them).

This has already been proven by less frequent content deliveries (geared towards the ultra-casuals with scaling content, a la GW2), "shortcuts" in Cash Shop & overall dumbing down of the game.

It's like dining in a fine restaurant (subscription) to dining in some trashy kiosk (B2P/F2P). Sure, the other one might be cheaper, but so is the experience.


But hey, enjoy "Skyrim with friends".

In 29 months, Guild Wars 2 had 41 content updates (new areas, dungeons, living story, and others). How many has ESO, a subscription game, had in almost 10 months?

Sorry, but ESO had more content added to it last year alone

You can't really compare 2-3 hour long quests (going by that, GW got around 100-200 hours of questing in 2 years) to trials & real dungeons (not the chaotic crapfests in GW2).

That said, ESO is quite a bad example of a subscription game, because they purposefully withheld content in order to release it later as DLC (courtesy of your beloved B2P model), and development crawled due to building Cash Shop items (they have admitted this in the latest AUA).

If you want a good example, you need to look no further than vanilla WoW.

Updates every 2-3 months that brought hundreds of hours of gameplay for every type of player, not 3-hour long quests.

Seriously, I have no idea how you can defend GW2's update schedule. There is not one gamer worth his salt who'd cite GW2 as a good example, unless you're one of those folks who play 2 hours a week (enough to do that one "content update" you get).

They change some bushes around & add a quest, calling it an update while ripping off customers in the Cash Shop, ridiculous.

Obviously you have never played Guild Wars 2. You have to make complete exagerations cause Guild Wars 2 actually proves you wrong in just about every way, and that threatens you, so you have to make up exaggerations.

1- The store doesn't rip you off, not even close, not even needed.

2- The Living story has more then just the quest, there are other things to go along with that take longer than 3 hours.

3- What you say about the dungeons is your opinion. I find the dungeons a whole lot of fun and challenging, more challenging than most dungeons of other MMOs I have played.

WoW Vanilla isn't a good example. I played that game from 2005 to 2006, they had next to nil content updates for the non raider. Considering that a developer not to long before the first expansion said that only 15% of their player base has actually entered Molten Core, and that even less completed it, tells you they were making content for an extremely small minority, and effectively made nothing for the non raiders. And the content they did make, was meant to be played 1 time per week and repeated over and over again, once it was on farm, it took only a few hours to complete the same content one was doing for 1 time a week for weeks before that.

Really?

Why don't you tell me what keeps me playing GW2 if I play... let's say 4 hours/day?
The Cash Shop selling buff stations, all kinds of "boosters", bank/inventory/storage space, additional crafting professions etc?

Awaiting your response

What keeps you playing ESO for 4 hours/day? Or any other MMO you might have played. Need to know this to better answer your question. I can answer this, unless you are some kind of hardcore raider like in WoW. Guild Wars 2 is not a raid game, which to me is one the big selling points of the game. Considering that most MMO players are not raiders, it isn't a big issue.

As for the store: To buy Bank tabs (11 tabs max), Bag slots (3 bag slots max), and max out crafting material storage (5 max -each upgrade adds 250 more for each crafting material). Would cost you $150 and 1 character, then add $15 for each additional character you might have.
It wouldn't make much sense to buy inventory space all at once, makes more sense to do it as needed. I play about 15 hours per week since launch and collect material like a mad man, I just barely got to the point that I needed to buy the crafting material upgrade to 500 of each material.


Every character gets 2 active crafting profession. Now with in the game, you can deactivate profession and activate another one for a small copper or silver fee depending on crafting level, and then when you want to go back to the other one again all your leveling in that crafting is still there. So what the additional Crafting profession item does in the store is make it so you do not have to pay that small fee, and you get your professions active at once instead of switching. This is purely a convenience item, since every character can have every crafting profession maxed out and switch to them without it.

Yasha wrote: »

Hahaha, sorry OP but your post is a joke.

Yep, and we are the punch-line.

Snowstrider wrote: »

If it is one thing eso lacks compared to other MMOS its the sandbox features and customization,I really hope they are improving on that (been hoping for that since beta)

The problem with sand-boxy elements in a game that is dependent on a cash shop for revenue is that they will have to give them to everyone and find a way to monetize the activities... which ends up being "if you want to do this, it'll cost you 250 C" or "this will take 36 hours to complete or 500C to complete immediately." type of gameplay.

DDuke wrote: »

eisberg wrote: »

What keeps you playing ESO for 4 hours/day?

Nothing really

One of the good sides of them holding off content to release as DLC later, instead of actually caring about their subscribers.

eisberg wrote: »

As for the store: To buy Bank tabs (11 tabs max), Bag slots (3 bag slots max), and max out crafting material storage (5 max -each upgrade adds 250 more for each crafting material). Would cost you $150 and 1 character, then add $15 for each additional character you might have.
It wouldn't make much sense to buy inventory space all at once, makes more sense to do it as needed. I play about 15 hours per week since launch and collect material like a mad man, I just barely got to the point that I needed to buy the crafting material upgrade to 500 of each material.

So it'd cost you 150$ if you were a more active player. There you have it. Ten months worth of subscription... for bank space/storage? Such a wonderful model this B2P.

eisberg wrote: »

Every character gets 2 active crafting profession. Now with in the game, you can deactivate profession and activate another one for a small copper or silver fee depending on crafting level, and then when you want to go back to the other one again all your leveling in that crafting is still there. So what the additional Crafting profession item does in the store is make it so you do not have to pay that small fee, and you get your professions active at once instead of switching. This is purely a convenience item, since every character can have every crafting profession maxed out and switch to them without it.

I think you're missing the point in that. The only reason they exist, is because artificial inconveniences are created to lessen your gameplay experience, making you want to use that Cash Shop.

And that is an indirect $$$->in game gold conversion by the way, since those things have value (and you'd want to buy them).


Regardless, you'll just come up with another set of excuses for how "awesome" GW2 is, while most people hate it.

Lets take my brother for instance, be paid that $150 at the beginning, 29 months later he hasn't spent a dime since then. This means over 29 months, he has averaged $5.17 a month, compare that to $435 if subscription game. Even the most hardcore player will not need to spend that $150 all at once. A co-worker of mine plays 30-40 hours per week, he hasn't even maxed out inventory space yet, he stated he bought $100 for inventory so far since the game launched, and another $100 on costumes (so $6.89 average per month spent)
Guild Wars 2 system wins there in saving money

I haven't played an MMO where 1 character can learn and level all the crafting professions in the game and switch between them without losing progression in them. You had to create different characters to do the same thing, you had to log in and out, wait for loading times ect in order to have all the crafting professions. So without that additional crafting profession they already made it more convenient and a better play experience. (Now I know ESO you can possibly have all crafting, but you are sacrificing your power in combat to do that)

I love crafting in games, my character has all the crafting professions maxed out, I still haven't bought additional crafting item, because paying 50 silver is an extremely small fee to switch between them. I average about 4 gold per week switching between them, but I make about 25 gold per week playing the game in the 15 hours I play, and that is low amount to earn, most people I talk to make about 3+ gold per hour.

The point is, when done correctly, a B2P system with a good store will actually save you money over a subscription fee. Paying $150 for inventory space and playing the game for more than 10 months will already start to save you money compared to a subscription MMO. Everything else in the store is pure fluff and is not needed.

eisberg wrote: »

(stuff) ....
The point is, when done correctly, a B2P system with a good store will actually save you money over a subscription fee. Paying $150 for inventory space and playing the game for more than 10 months will already start to save you money compared to a subscription MMO. Everything else in the store is pure fluff and is not needed.

The B2P/F2P model works on "Walmart Economics". They're not trying to sell a moderately priced item to one person, they're trying to sell a cheap item to a BUNCH of people.

If they can get 5 B2P players to spend an average of $5 a month for every 1 subscriber they loose... they will make WAY more than they ever would have with the subscription model.

It's a sound plan... and we're all REALLY hoping it leads to a better ESO in the end. None of us want to see ESO fail. We want to see it become THE mmo to beat.