SWTOR

[Venkman]

paying 49.99 dollars for a single player game with an 'end' is fine....

paying that plus 14.99 a month just so you can play that single player game with others? not so much.

Everyone has a price. We're making a lot of assumptions here (subs, no endgame, etc), but one thing is for certain: the industry isn't done with experimental business models. This looks like far too expensive an undertaking for the free2play model. Those types of games are either made on the cheap or converted to f2p as a defensive move. So I've been assuming this'd be subs based.

Players measure time invested into an MMO differently than they do an RPG. Where even a deep RPG may be "done" in 60-80 hours, that's barely the first two months of an MMO. It's also the burnout rate for the recent "WoW killers" (Aion is tbd until NC reports Q4), all having fallen off a cliff either because they were broken in unacceptable ways or the endgame wasn't worth arriving at. Successful MMOs keep players for hundreds of hours, and the Austin team knows this.

Given their backgrounds, I doubt this is going to actually be just KOTOR * 8 in terms of single player content. Nobody would last that long. People continue paying subs after they hit the cap because they like whatever repetitious activity is there to let them continue to make micro achievements (PvP/solo-PvE grinds) are large jumps at long intervals (raids/Arenas). These aren't hard nor new concepts. It just sounds like SWTOR is going to have a lot more of a front-end build up, or at least one with a lot more variety between classes.

[Fordel]

That's a very... forced comparison.  Regardless, is that really why you buy tickets to a sporting event?  By that logic, would you pay $50-100 to watch sports on a big screen TV in a room with a fuckton of people in it just because it's a Massive Shared experience?  

I went to the Skydome to watch a away game on the JumboTronScreenTV thing once, it didn't cost me anything though. 

I also played DaoC for years (still rant about it even) and I focus on the large scale PvP portions of WoW (for what it's worth/available).


/shrug

[Rendakor]

That's a very... forced comparison.  Regardless, is that really why you buy tickets to a sporting event?  By that logic, would you pay $50-100 to watch sports on a big screen TV in a room with a fuckton of people in it just because it's a Massive Shared experience? 

This is why people go to sports bars, or have football parties.


For me the reason for a sub fee is that it makes in game achievements more meaningful by allowing you to show them off and compete against other players. Unlike a single player game, getting a gear upgrade means something because it helps you and your friends get through content better. It's fun to run a damage meter and see if you can parse higher than that other guy, or working on a new rotation to see if it helps your dps. Hell, just running around in a city and seeing other people and inspecting their gear is fun for me.

I resubbed to EQ2 a month ago, and because of the functionality they gave guild halls all the major cities were empty: there was no crowd of people at the broker in EFP, nobody crafting in any of the TS dungeons, etc. It made the difference, to me, between an MMO and something like Diablo 2, where your only Massive interaction was a chat window, and I quickly grew bored and unsubbed again.

[eldaec]

That's a very... forced comparison.  Regardless, is that really why you buy tickets to a sporting event?  By that logic, would you pay $50-100 to watch sports on a big screen TV in a room with a fuckton of people in it just because it's a Massive Shared experience?  

Lots of people do exactly this.

And that massive shared experience doesn't even last all month.

[Lakov_Sanite]

paying 49.99 dollars for a single player game with an 'end' is fine....

paying that plus 14.99 a month just so you can play that single player game with others? not so much.

Out of curiosity, why do you find it acceptable to pay sub fees for MMO's?  What is it that they do that you feel justifies them charging you on a monthly basis?

Let's go with Dragon Age.

When I bought the game, DA was 49.99, reasonable for a 40+ hour single player game.  I enjoyed it but I took my time with it, it may have taken me over a month to beat but in the end I got my monies worth and even re-rolled a different class to try something new(god my mage was op)

Now consider I had to pay not only the initial box fee but on top of that if I took over a month to beat the game I was charged a fee, and a fee for every month after. So even if I wanted to re-roll, each month I spent on those new characters i would continue to pay money for a game i'd already beaten and the only thing I would get for that money is my npc's instead being pc's? That alone is not worth a subscription fee.

[Malakili]

paying 49.99 dollars for a single player game with an 'end' is fine....

paying that plus 14.99 a month just so you can play that single player game with others? not so much.

Out of curiosity, why do you find it acceptable to pay sub fees for MMO's?  What is it that they do that you feel justifies them charging you on a monthly basis?

Let's go with Dragon Age.

When I bought the game, DA was 49.99, reasonable for a 40+ hour single player game.  I enjoyed it but I took my time with it, it may have taken me over a month to beat but in the end I got my monies worth and even re-rolled a different class to try something new(god my mage was op)

Now consider I had to pay not only the initial box fee but on top of that if I took over a month to beat the game I was charged a fee, and a fee for every month after. So even if I wanted to re-roll, each month I spent on those new characters i would continue to pay money for a game i'd already beaten and the only thing I would get for that money is my npc's instead being pc's? That alone is not worth a subscription fee.

This is basically the long and short of it.   The precedent is set for games like this to not have the monthly fee, so its hard to add it now.  I guess the counter-point is that SWTOR should have ongoing content that your monthly fee is paying for, but in that case I'd prefer a Dragon Age style DLC system anyway.

i think i mentioned it before, but somewhere in my mind I've associated monthly fees with server upkeep/bandwidth costs, rather than content.  I know there are tons of "free" content updates in MMOs with monthly fees that are clearly being funded by those monthly fees, but for some reason I divide it up that way in my head, and I don't like the idea of paying a monthly fee purely for content, especially because you are effectively paying for something that you may not really want/care about.

[Numtini]

I'm playing WoW entirely by staying in the city and doing the random dungeons. I'm not guilded. My raid friends either aren't inviting me or are not raiding for the holidays. I log in a couple of times a week and insta-instance and then log out after. Honestly, I don't see that as an MMO and I don't think it's worth paying for. At least not the same fee that I'm paying for a game that really is MMO. (I'm only paid up because I'm in a 6 month pre-pay.)

In an average play session, I see 4 people, as compared to 9 in League of Legends.

It is a pretty good game. But it's just more of something you'd do free or via microtransaction. If that was it from day one, I can't imagine really paying $180/year for it.

[AutomaticZen]

This is basically the long and short of it.   The precedent is set for games like this to not have the monthly fee, so its hard to add it now.  I guess the counter-point is that SWTOR should have ongoing content that your monthly fee is paying for, but in that case I'd prefer a Dragon Age style DLC system anyway.

i think i mentioned it before, but somewhere in my mind I've associated monthly fees with server upkeep/bandwidth costs, rather than content.  I know there are tons of "free" content updates in MMOs with monthly fees that are clearly being funded by those monthly fees, but for some reason I divide it up that way in my head, and I don't like the idea of paying a monthly fee purely for content, especially because you are effectively paying for something that you may not really want/care about.

Right right, but this is looking to be WoW In Space! with more class centric quests thrown in.  Which I guess is bad for some, but I'm not seeing the overall failure here.

Velorath's saying if you're playing and paying for WoW, then calling this a failure makes you look odd.

Or did people actually expect Bioware to revolutionize MMOs?

[Triforcer]

Numtini- And that's precisely the problem with the constant trend of making everything easier in MMOs.  When there is no getting to know local people and no doing anything that isn't instanced, people lose attachment to their characters.  People don't pay for Diablo or FPSes, why would they pay for MMOs where everything is small scale Diablo co-op or TF2 PvP deathmatching?  

[Fordel]

Just because you choose to not be apart of the local community in WoW, does not mean it doesn't exist.


It's a mind numbingly retarded community, but it's absolutely there.

[sidereal]

The other aspect of the monthly fee that people haven't discussed (in this part of the thread) yet is the constant updates.  LOTRO gets patches. . not just fixes for bugs, but significant gameplay patches as well as new content. . on a regular basis.  If Dragon Age had new quests, new mechanics, new spells, and new regions opening up on a monthly basis, it'd be worth paying a monthly fee for, even without multiplayer.  Add in serendipitous socialization, and that's why people are happy to print moneyhats for Blizzard.  It's entirely possible for SWTOR to get both without an open world.

[Malakili]

Velorath's saying if you're playing and paying for WoW, then calling this a failure makes you look odd.

Or did people actually expect Bioware to revolutionize MMOs?

From everything they've said it doesn't seem like WoW is actually a very good example though, it seems more like a KOTOR/Guild Wars hybrid.  

[Velorath]

Anybody who plays WoW though and whips that shit out is a fucking hypocrite though, especially these days with it's 25 person maximum raids (less massive than a lot of FPS games out there), and random dungeon finder. 

Are you kidding, the dungeon finder is the most massive gameplay element in WoW so far. You can be interacting with 4 random people from a pool of probably hundreds of thousands any time you want.

By that rationale, virtually any multiplayer game is a massive experience.  It essentially turns finding a group in WoW into the equivalent of a lobby in pretty much any other online game.

[eldaec]

If Dragon Age had new quests, new mechanics, new spells, and new regions opening up on a monthly basis, it'd be worth paying a monthly fee for, even without multiplayer.

OTOH if Dragon Age was put together by a all new group of failed mmog developers rather than by bioware, and it if the whole story was based around the 'bioware-nameless-main-character' with no companion or party system, and if you were told you were playing a story rpg without the ability to save and reload; would it really seem so interesting?

I still don't understand what this team is offering us bar a watered down version of Kotor.

All that said, if SWTOR stands up to Dragon Age as a single player rpg (rofl), and if they add several hours of new content each month, I would happily buy it, and subscribe for a couple of months each year to run thorugh the content.

But this has nothing to do with massively multiplayer gameplay. My suspicion is that the only reason for the MMOG tag and the graphical lobby between dungeons is to get people comfortable with the idea of a subscription to fund DLC. Unfortunately I suspect they are also hiding behind the MMOG tag as an excuse to water down the basic game.

[Ingmar]

paying 49.99 dollars for a single player game with an 'end' is fine....

paying that plus 14.99 a month just so you can play that single player game with others? not so much.

Out of curiosity, why do you find it acceptable to pay sub fees for MMO's?  What is it that they do that you feel justifies them charging you on a monthly basis?

Let's go with Dragon Age.

When I bought the game, DA was 49.99, reasonable for a 40+ hour single player game.  I enjoyed it but I took my time with it, it may have taken me over a month to beat but in the end I got my monies worth and even re-rolled a different class to try something new(god my mage was op)

Now consider I had to pay not only the initial box fee but on top of that if I took over a month to beat the game I was charged a fee, and a fee for every month after. So even if I wanted to re-roll, each month I spent on those new characters i would continue to pay money for a game i'd already beaten and the only thing I would get for that money is my npc's instead being pc's? That alone is not worth a subscription fee.

Now consider what if Dragon Age had 6 times the content - say it had an entirely different storyline, content, quests for every origin, and added a robust multiplayer option. But it still only cost $50 for the box. Wouldn't that be worth paying a monthly fee at least until you were finished with it? You'd still probably come out ahead of $50x6 which is what 6 single player games would cost you, unless you're a really slow game player. That's the point I'm making here.

(Surgeon General's Note: this post contains some fairly unfounded assumptions about the structure, price and content of SW:TOR.)

[Velorath]

There is a big difference between 25 people playing TF2 and complex encounters that require 25 people working as a tight knit group, over many months, to defeat. If you can't see the difference then that's more a limitation of your understanding and probably the reason you only see things from a PUG point of view.

You say I see things from a PUG point of view, and yet you're doing the same thing with something like TF2.  There are a lot of people who form clans for FPS games as well and I'd say it takes a tighter knit group to play consistently well with each other against human players than it does to get 25 people to read the tactics for the latest boss on the message boards and then mimic it.  They're different play styles to be sure, but I don't think that one is really any more "massively multiplayer" than the other when it comes down to actually playing the game.

paying 49.99 dollars for a single player game with an 'end' is fine....

paying that plus 14.99 a month just so you can play that single player game with others? not so much.

Out of curiosity, why do you find it acceptable to pay sub fees for MMO's?  What is it that they do that you feel justifies them charging you on a monthly basis?

Let's go with Dragon Age.

When I bought the game, DA was 49.99, reasonable for a 40+ hour single player game.  I enjoyed it but I took my time with it, it may have taken me over a month to beat but in the end I got my monies worth and even re-rolled a different class to try something new(god my mage was op)

Now consider I had to pay not only the initial box fee but on top of that if I took over a month to beat the game I was charged a fee, and a fee for every month after. So even if I wanted to re-roll, each month I spent on those new characters i would continue to pay money for a game i'd already beaten and the only thing I would get for that money is my npc's instead being pc's? That alone is not worth a subscription fee.

Ok... so you won't pay a sub fee for a single player game.  Doesn't really answer the question of why you find paying one for MMO's acceptable.

[eldaec]

paying 49.99 dollars for a single player game with an 'end' is fine....

paying that plus 14.99 a month just so you can play that single player game with others? not so much.

Out of curiosity, why do you find it acceptable to pay sub fees for MMO's?  What is it that they do that you feel justifies them charging you on a monthly basis?

Let's go with Dragon Age.

When I bought the game, DA was 49.99, reasonable for a 40+ hour single player game.  I enjoyed it but I took my time with it, it may have taken me over a month to beat but in the end I got my monies worth and even re-rolled a different class to try something new(god my mage was op)

Now consider I had to pay not only the initial box fee but on top of that if I took over a month to beat the game I was charged a fee, and a fee for every month after. So even if I wanted to re-roll, each month I spent on those new characters i would continue to pay money for a game i'd already beaten and the only thing I would get for that money is my npc's instead being pc's? That alone is not worth a subscription fee.

Now consider what if Dragon Age had 6 times the content - say it had an entirely different storyline, content, quests for every origin, and added a robust multiplayer option. But it still only cost $50 for the box. Wouldn't that be worth paying a monthly fee at least until you were finished with it? You'd still probably come out ahead of $50x6 which is what 6 single player games would cost you, unless you're a really slow game player. That's the point I'm making here.

(Surgeon General's Note: this post contains some fairly unfounded assumptions about the structure, price and content of SW:TOR.)

tbh, if they make the basic game shit in order to tag on multiplayer, I don't give a crap how much of it there is. My concern here is that all team have offered is some of kotor's features, BUTOMGBBQ ONLINE! I'll start caring about online when the team tell wtf they plan to do with it.

But I don't think that is your point, if you mean 'would I pay a subscription for a good single player game that had enough content and quality to hold my interest for more than a month'? Then sure, absolutely. If this is as good as Dragon Age I'd subscribe until I ran out of content or got distracted.

But it won't be.

[Velorath]

OTOH if Dragon Age was put together by a all new group of failed mmog developers rather than by bioware

You mean if the guy leading the team wasn't the same guy who was lead designer on Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Knights of the Old Republic, and was also involved in making NWN, Jade Empire, and Dragon Age (I assume earlier on in the project, but he has a Lead Designer credit)?

Then no, I probably wouldn't be as interested.

[Ingmar]

That plus presumably oversight/involvement from Greg & Ray takes a bunch of the edge off my worries about the title, it is true.

[Numtini]

Just because you choose to not be apart of the local community in WoW, does not mean it doesn't exist.

Oops, while I was fiddling I deleted the line "I know there's an MMO there, but I'm not playing it. I'm just doing instances."

As for why we pay subscription fees for MMO games, the reasoning was because the infrastructure was far too elaborate, bandwidth intensive, and so on to do without a subscription fee. Since that time all those things have become cheaper and the games themselves have become more and more simply multiplayer and less and less massive.

There's a certain line where consciously or unconsciously people don't cross. I'd say that has a big thing to do with why both Sims Online and DDO failed and why DDO is having a renaissance as a microtrans game.

[sidereal]

As for why we pay subscription fees for MMO games, the reasoning was because the infrastructure was far too elaborate, bandwidth intensive, and so on to do without a subscription fee.

No, that's why the developer needs the money, it's not why people pay.  People aren't going to pay because a developer says their business model needs it.  People will pay because they're getting something for their money.

Unfortunately, people don't have a very good understanding of what that something is.  And when developers try to test the boundaries of that something by taking Everquest features away and adding new ones, lots of people get irrationally pissed off and use phrases like 'glorified single-player game'.  Even I do it!  But I shouldn't.

After careful consideration, I'm okay paying a monthly fee for LOTRO and not for Dragon Age because, in order of priority:
1) Constant updates
2) Vast, vast amount of content (like, it takes a year of frequent playing just to see it all)
3) Serendipitous socialization (unplanned running into people doing interesting things)
4) Minor planned social events (Beer fights)
5) Group game content (preferably not forced)

If SWTOR offers enough of those, it's worth a monthly fee.  I might pay a fee just for the first one, if the content is good enough.  I probably would have paid a fee for Fallout 3 if the DLC came with it and came at about twice the rate it actually did (and kept going, obviously).

[Crumbs]

Ok... so you won't pay a sub fee for a single player game.  Doesn't really answer the question of why you find paying one for MMO's acceptable.

Isn't Bioware saying SWTOR is a MMO?  That's the thing there.  If they came out and said it's a single player with updating content, it might be an easier sub to pay.

[taolurker]

Let's go with Dragon Age.

When I bought the game, DA was 49.99, reasonable for a 40+ hour single player game.  I enjoyed it but I took my time with it, it may have taken me over a month to beat but in the end I got my monies worth and even re-rolled a different class to try something new(god my mage was op)

Now consider I had to pay not only the initial box fee but on top of that if I took over a month to beat the game I was charged a fee, and a fee for every month after. So even if I wanted to re-roll, each month I spent on those new characters i would continue to pay money for a game i'd already beaten and the only thing I would get for that money is my npc's instead being pc's? That alone is not worth a subscription fee.

This is basically the long and short of it.   The precedent is set for games like this to not have the monthly fee, so its hard to add it now.  I guess the counter-point is that SWTOR should have ongoing content that your monthly fee is paying for, but in that case I'd prefer a Dragon Age style DLC system anyway.

THIS^^

Yah but in Dragon age you control a party of 4 members and don't need to yell at them to do something to prevent your four man pickup group from getting a total wipe. I cannot MMO anymore because of lack of trust from PUG hell and also because it's not a role people play as much as a numbers game they are trying to maximize while they solo along with other people. I can pay to solo or not have someone say I'm doing it too slow with a single player game and no recurring fees (maybe DLC which is optional).

I don't see reason to have a single player game with multiple people unless it is for Raiding or PvP and I just don't see Pvp being very fun or balanced in this MMO. SWTOR = Dragon Age with subscription fee.

[Venkman]

These games already have ongoing content. They also have ongoing fixes to that content. No game except AC1 and MxO really achieved the consistent recurring advances of a story line, but the promise is always there.

Ok... so you won't pay a sub fee for a single player game.  Doesn't really answer the question of why you find paying one for MMO's acceptable.

Isn't Bioware saying SWTOR is a MMO?  That's the thing there.  If they came out and said it's a single player with updating content, it might be an easier sub to pay.

Who'd pay a sub for a single player game? And the sales of DLC are neither often enough nor purchased in high enough ratio to the base ownership to bank a huge expense like this game on it. That's why it makes sense to start with "MMO". Paves the way for a recurring cost analogous to what people are already paying.

tl;dr: would you pay a monthly fee for Fallout 3 if the DLC packs all launched as patches over the last two years?

[Malakili]

As for why we pay subscription fees for MMO games, the reasoning was because the infrastructure was far too elaborate, bandwidth intensive, and so on to do without a subscription fee.

No, that's why the developer needs the money, it's not why people pay.  People aren't going to pay because a developer says their business model needs it.  People will pay because they're getting something for their money.

...

If SWTOR offers enough of those, it's worth a monthly fee.  I might pay a fee just for the first one, if the content is good enough.  I probably would have paid a fee for Fallout 3 if the DLC came with it and came at about twice the rate it actually did (and kept going, obviously).

Actually, the infrastructure needs are one of the main reasons I'm willing to pay.  If content is what you are paying for, then you can do downloadable content, or if your game is just so HUGE that $50 for the box doesn't reasonably cover your costs 1) make your project smaller, and release content updates as DLC, that model is proven to work, or 2) charge more for the game up front.

Guild Wars showed that a frequent expansions and no monthly fee model can be successful.   So, lets put it another way, would you pay 15 bucks a month for guild wars as is, if you got the expansions as they came instead of having to go out and buy the box.  I suspect you'd end up paying a more (a lot more), if you were paying 15 bucks a month for it.   Now, granted, Guild Wars isn't the kind of experience Bioware is saying TOR will be, but in terms of single player/multiplayer/MMO I think its very similar.

[WindupAtheist]

You can sit here and bitch about how WoW doesn't have anything for more than 25 people and how that isn't really massive, but that's not going to give me any more tolerance for greedy assholes who looked at Blizzard's moneyhats and decided to just slap a chat box and subscription fee onto everything.

[Velorath]

You can sit here and bitch about how WoW doesn't have anything for more than 25 people and how that isn't really massive, but that's not going to give me any more tolerance for greedy assholes who looked at Blizzard's moneyhats and decided to just slap a chat box and subscription fee onto everything.

Who did that?

[Rendakor]

Hellgate certainly did.

[schild]

Bioware certainly will.

[Hoax]

I want to know what all of you are going to give eldaec for being so right about this pile of shit game.  Sure Star Trek will be worse but thats about the only nice thing I can think of to say about it.

[sidereal]

A small vial of my tears.

[AutomaticZen]

Somehow I'll survive.  I'l carry on.

[Velorath]

I want to know what all of you are going to give eldaec for being so right about this pile of shit game.

The coveted "who gives a shit" award?  Is this supposed to somehow disuade me from daring to be optimistic about a game.  Fuck all the cynical fuckers who just have to be the first ones in line to hate shit.  Wait for beta at least, or stop obsessively following the game if you've already made up your mind.

[Malakili]

I want to know what all of you are going to give eldaec for being so right about this pile of shit game.

The coveted "who gives a shit" award?  Is this supposed to somehow disuade me from daring to be optimistic about a game.  Fuck all the cynical fuckers who just have to be the first ones in line to hate shit.  Wait for beta at least, or stop obsessively following the game if you've already made up your mind.

I don't obsessively follow TOR, i just obsessively follow F13, and currently a SWTOR thread is over 80 pages, and I'm  star wars fan/

[Venkman]

You can sit here and bitch about how WoW doesn't have anything for more than 25 people and how that isn't really massive, but that's not going to give me any more tolerance for greedy assholes who looked at Blizzard's moneyhats and decided to just slap a chat box and subscription fee onto everything.

If they give me a DA:O with bi-monthly story updates, they can charge me $14.99/mo. That's why I asked what I did earlier. I would pay $14.99 for a Fallout 3 with consistent content updates. It's basically how I play MMOs as it is. I don't have the lifestyle to take them too serious, so am locked out of serious raids anyway. So I'm all for better tailored content in a sometimes shared space. Easier to brag about the shit I've done when it's not just NPCs I'm talking to.

I'd rather have an RPG than EQ1 with wookiees WoW in space.