Keep in mind that the PLEX option doesn't generate extra revenue for GW. If a player buys a PLEX off GW for $15, and I buy a PLEX off that player, I'm not paying that $15 for the month to GW.
What PLEX does is cut out the gold selling market. Players who want to 'buy gold' can sell game time to other players for in-game gold. A system I very much support.
Goblin Squad Member
|
I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum than everyone who is begging for F2P. I've been paying $10-16/month for playing MMORPG's since 96.. that's 17 years at the same price! Make the game good, charge $20-25/month. I'm more interested in a quality player base which seems to happen when you bring money into the equation. Especially with PvP playing such a large part, this will be important. Leave the riff-raff in their other free to play games.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
While my tendency is toward subscription that includes a stipend of Plex-like tokens I'd rather that should be only one of several options. Where the players are what provides content I'd rather have many players than only the privileged few. Economic station does not resolve to 'good': there are wealthy riff-raff and impoverished scholars. There are mature young and a$$hat seniors. Take my neighbor, for example: PLEASE, and the farther you take him the better.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Keep in mind that the PLEX option doesn't generate extra revenue for GW. If a player buys a PLEX off GW for $15, and I buy a PLEX off that player, I'm not paying that $15 for the month to GW.
What PLEX does is cut out the gold selling market. Players who want to 'buy gold' can sell game time to other players for in-game gold. A system I very much support.
Disagree on the PLEX option not generating extra revenue. If a player doesn't choose to buy a subscription for whatever reason and the PLEX option isn't there, then that player still will not pay for the sub and just not play. By having the PLEX available any other player can buy the time and sell it, giving GW the 15 bucks they they wouldn't have had before, and giving the game another player who is buying that time via in-game gold. That player who may also buy one-time items from the cash store even if they don't have the funds or desire to pay a recurring sub.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Keep in mind that the PLEX option doesn't generate extra revenue for GW. If a player buys a PLEX off GW for $15, and I buy a PLEX off that player, I'm not paying that $15 for the month to GW.
What PLEX does is cut out the gold selling market. Players who want to 'buy gold' can sell game time to other players for in-game gold. A system I very much support.
It actually does. You paid for the PLEX, and then traded it to someone else. You didn't get to use the benefits of the PLEX, someone else did.
I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure PLEX isn't something you buy and get double benefits.
Keep in mind that the PLEX option doesn't generate extra revenue for GW. If a player buys a PLEX off GW for $15, and I buy a PLEX off that player, I'm not paying that $15 for the month to GW.
What PLEX does is cut out the gold selling market. Players who want to 'buy gold' can sell game time to other players for in-game gold. A system I very much support.
It actually does. You paid for the PLEX, and then traded it to someone else. You didn't get to use the benefits of the PLEX, someone else did.
Right, and THAT person in turn doesn't pay $15. So in this case, of two people:
1 has paid $30 (their own sub and the plex)
1 has paid $0 (they use the plex)
A total of $30 to GW for two monthly subs.
Having said that, I will concede to Imbicatus. I guess you would have players who wouldn't play at all if they couldn't buy game time with in-game money. Getting to that point does usually require some investemt in the character already though. I don't think it's feasible for someone to start playing EVE and immediately be able to pay their subscription with in-game money. (at least not with considerable help and knowledge from people who have already been playing for a while).
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
While my tendency is toward subscription that includes a stipend of Plex-like tokens I'd rather that should be only one of several options. Where the players are what provides content I'd rather have many players than only the privileged few. Economic station does not resolve to 'good': there are wealthy riff-raff and impoverished scholars. There are mature young and a$$hat seniors. Take my neighbor, for example: PLEASE, and the farther you take him the better.
Sure it's a generalization and you'll find plenty of exceptions. But, for a very large majority of cases, the mature players can afford a small monthly fee and don't mind paying it. As an example, play.net (Dragon Realms) has the most mature and friendly player base I've ever seen, and it is a text MMORPG that charges $15+ monthly.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
My personal experience is that anything free is not valued. Give your little sister a free car she will trash it. Get her to buy it off you, even at a fraction of its real cost, and she values it and is out washing and polishing it.
Also its very hard for free-to-play games to do well without becoming pay-to-win.
There are alternatives, for example:
- the old-school model, sell an offline game that gives lifetime free access to the online server combined with paid addons
- have limited time free access (3 months for example) to get your account started
- in the flight-sim world there are games where you "buy" the aircraft you want and that gives free access
- have extremely cheap access combined with paid addons
The real problem with free-to-play is you still need to make money and it is very tempting for the devs to start offering overpowered items at a premium price or alternatively allow stacking of low end addons (hitpoints at $2 per 10HP stacking indefinitely? I will have 1000 etc etc).
A real example of the stacking addon issue is the MMO-RTS Evony where you can buy small attack improvements for your heroes but they stack. One player on my server had spent in excess of $5000 real money upgrading a single hero. Good for the owners of the game, bad for anyone playing on that server.
oh ... and please please please avoid steamI'd like to ask why you say so?
While I don't advocate making the game requiring steam to run or anything, I'd like to hear why not have it on steam? I like having my games in one manageable area.
I don't like steam because your forced to run it if you want to play a game you' bought the physical disc for like I did with Skyrim. And they make it impossible to resell a game after your done playing it. AND that you've got to be online to play an offline game.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
oh ... and please please please avoid steamI'd like to ask why you say so?
While I don't advocate making the game requiring steam to run or anything, I'd like to hear why not have it on steam? I like having my games in one manageable area.
Clearly your preference is wrong and you should feel bad for liking stuff that someone else doesn't. Or something.
I don't like steam because your forced to run it if you want to play a game you' bought the physical disc for like I did with Skyrim. And they make it impossible to resell a game after your done playing it. AND that you've got to be online to play an offline game.
That's a weird reason to not like steam, but I respect your right to be weird.
But seriously, a publisher making exclusive distribution deals, whether it's Steam or someone else, sucks. And I guess Steam doesn't work well with the weird American fetish of selling used games.
But Steam doesn't require you to be online to play offline games. You're thinking of Blizzard. ;)
That's a weird reason to not like steam, but I respect your right to be weird.
Thank you /bow ;)
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
...
I don't like steam because your forced to run it if you want to play a game you' bought the physical disc for like I did with Skyrim. And they make it impossible to resell a game after your done playing it. AND that you've got to be online to play an offline game.That's a weird reason to not like steam, but I respect your right to be weird.
...
Not at all. You enjoy your broadband but much of the world is rural, where if you have a dial up connection that isn't long distance you consider yourself lucky.
Requiring online play for solo content is excluding a sizable portion of your potential player base.
You city folk (says the guy in Philadelphia) really should be more considerate. Not everyone is so fortunate.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I truly hope the subs won't be more than 15 USD per month for training, for the exchange rate currently is killing my entertainment budget. It is bad enough we recently hit all time worse exchange rate to the USD, causing everything imported to more expensive again.
Not at all. You enjoy your broadband but much of the world is rural, where if you have a dial up connection that isn't long distance you consider yourself lucky.Requiring online play for solo content is excluding a sizable portion of your potential player base.
You city folk (says the guy in Philadelphia) really should be more considerate. Not everyone is so fortunate.
:D. You've no way of knowing, so it's cool, but I'm actually way out in the wilderness. About 25 miles away from the nearest medium sized city. When we moved here we dealt with the developer to get the trees cleared so a road could be put in, I established electric service, water and gas for the area and the only Internet service we had was dial up!:(
About 3 years later DSL became available and we STILL don't have access to cable! :/ we don't get charged for going over some limit, but our service isn't the best. It's a 45 min. Drive from the city to my area. Despite that, it's really just a matter of my not liking to be "made" to use something like the Steam program without it benefiting anyone other then Steam.
There's some sort of universal access bill that would open the markets up and allow companies to offer Internet service wherever they want, in addition to requiring them to provide broadband service anywhere within the CONUS. I wish they would pass that, I want cable!
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
To be fair, Steam does have an offline mode, you just have to be online once to activate it. Or to download any games, anyway.
I like it, but I agree an mmo shouldn't require it to run. Some are on steam, but as far as I know they all have separate launchers you could use anyways.
I personally enjoy Steam, which is why I have most of my games on their these days, but I've seen fair reasons to dislike it.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I don't like steam because your forced to run it if you want to play a game you' bought the physical disc for like I did with Skyrim. And they make it impossible to resell a game after your done playing it. AND that you've got to be online to play an offline game.oh ... and please please please avoid steamI'd like to ask why you say so?
While I don't advocate making the game requiring steam to run or anything, I'd like to hear why not have it on steam? I like having my games in one manageable area.
It is illegal to re-sell licensed software. The physical disc means nothing for PC games.