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I would think that publicity is only good for initial launch and luring new players. Any pay-to-play game will need to actually have good content to hold anyones interest.

UO, Everquest, Lineage, City of Heroes, SWG, WoW, etc... with the exception of UO's retarded expansions, they have all proven to be quality games. That's because of their production value which would not have been so high without the expectation of users paying monthly.

You won't see any free mmorpgs paying for the best programmers, designers, artists, or writers they can find.

Valas Wrote:I got really sick of always being so far behind people. The game was really good but the skill system sucked because there was no way to catch up to anyone.

you can make valuable contributions to fleets and gangs after a week or two, you dont need uber sp's to have an effect. so really theres no need to catch up. everyone plays their part.

its retarted to have to pay for a game on a monthly basis. paying for a copy in the store is only normal. look at all the games Blizzard Entertainment makes... warcraft 1, warcraft 2, warcraft 3 (plus the expansions for each one), starcraft, starcraft broodwars, diablo 1, diablo 2, diablo 2 lord of destruction and so on... not one of these games were pay to play and Blizzard made LOADS of money. there were always patches coming and people there to help you with technical problems. Companies make enough money when their games are bought off the shelf, they shouldn't be charging us more money just because the company executives want more then 1 ferrari in their driveway.

Pande Wrote:its retarted to have to pay for a game on a monthly basis. paying for a copy in the store is only normal. look at all the games Blizzard Entertainment makes... warcraft 1, warcraft 2, warcraft 3 (plus the expansions for each one), starcraft, starcraft broodwars, diablo 1, diablo 2, diablo 2 lord of destruction and so on... not one of these games were pay to play and Blizzard made LOADS of money. there were always patches coming and people there to help you with technical problems. Companies make enough money when their games are bought off the shelf, they shouldn't be charging us more money just because the company executives want more then 1 ferrari in their driveway.

did those othergames require blizzard to have to pay for masses of servers, in two different parts of the world? did they require GM staffing? i think not.

blizzard could probably pay the bills charging less but then they wouldnt be able to get out patches as often or do as much work, same applies for any mmo.

and finally, an extra ferrari on the driveway is ALWAYS a good reason to charge more. if you make something which millions enjoy you are truly talented and deserve to live a good life, hell, everyone deserves to live a good life.

there's a good life, and a spoiled life. when there are millions of people starving around the world, or millions of people on welfare, there exists a little something called excess. when people are working 3 jobs to support their family, people with car collections live in excess.

i doubt blizzard was paying for servers, but they could of easily afforded it. i do know that when i was playing diablo 2 (for 4 years online) there were HUNDREDS, even THOUSANDS of worlds up at any second.

did blizzard's game i listed required constant staffing? no, because they designed the game so people fend for themselves. if you want to know how to beat a boss you can ask the other people. if you have a problem you can go see their technical support staff. blizzard is a gaming genious with their games like diablo, starcraft, warcraft 1-3.

Pande Wrote:there's a good life, and a spoiled life. when there are millions of people starving around the world, or millions of people on welfare, there exists a little something called excess. when people are working 3 jobs to support their family, people with car collections live in excess.

i doubt blizzard was paying for servers, but they could of easily afforded it. i do know that when i was playing diablo 2 (for 4 years online) there were HUNDREDS, even THOUSANDS of worlds up at any second.

did blizzard's game i listed required constant staffing? no, because they designed the game so people fend for themselves. if you want to know how to beat a boss you can ask the other people. if you have a problem you can go see their technical support staff. blizzard is a gaming genious with their games like diablo, starcraft, warcraft 1-3.

This is irrelevant..
Its simple.. if you play a game that isn't pay by month, then your going to get a quality game that doesnt get updated except for general troubleshooting and tweaking. A game like guildwars is great fun and enough for people who can't afford to pay by month. They shouldn't have to make all games PAy once just because people can't afford them.

The games you pay by month are designed for people who wants Constant updates, faster servers, way more player base, Intricate plots and free expansions to the game constantly.

Their 2 different games completely. You can't compare games like Diablo 2 and City of Heroes.. their completely different.

Just like Guild Wars and WoW are completely different. You probably don't think so, but it's true. Wow is like a complete world and constantly updated and super fast servers. While Guild wars is actually a very linear game thats masked to look like a large world. Of course you can visit all sorts of areas, but the game itself goes in one direction.

So it all depends on what you want.. if you want Quality they both have it.
In my opinion their 2 different kinds of games..

But theirs nothing wrong with charging monthly, especially when the game has constantly new things added to it, new areas, enemies, storyline, items, technical support etc etc..

Games like Guildwars and Diablo 2 and etc.. don't need constant server upgrades because of the way the fighting is designed. In guildwars when you go out and venture into the world where you can be hurt, only your party exists in that area, so only like up to 10 ppl can fight in one area. This keeps latency down since less people in a enclosed area. Except during special PVP battles.

While in WoW you can have literally 100's of people fighting anywhere, and have like half the server fighting off the other half, or doing amazing quests that involve like 50 people.. theirs a big difference in what a pay per month server offers compared to a One payment only.

Honestly, if you dont want to pay, then go play a game where you dont have too. I honestly am not into MMORPG's as much as i used to be. I started City of Heroes.. but the game is repetive.. and its a game I can honestly say isn't worth paying per month, because it is incredibly limited.. but desguises itself a vast, because its so new and original. Right now WoW is really the most impressive MMORPG out their still.. im not into Space games.. way to indepth for me. i dont have time to learn a system as intricate as Eve..

No offense, but people aren't going to not enjoy playing games just because other ppl are starving or have 3 jobs.. as sad as it is to say "its about money", they do not cater to the poor.. if you can't pay to play, then you go play something else.. thats a sad fact.. you can't say "Oh why doesn't that company make it one payment only so that I can play.." ummm because... they want all your money.. thats why. And they know people will give it to them. So if you want to be mad at somebody, blame the millions of people who don't agree with you and pay anyway.


Oh and i forgot to mention. Games like Diablo and diablo 2 have worlds hosted on Client computers not servers.. that doesnt make it "Genius" lol.. it makes it limited.. Diablo 2 generates random maps .. Woohoo.. thats not really an intricate game.. Diablo 2 is nothing compared to an MMORPG.. i wouldnt even call it that.. id simply call it an Online game lol. Even if u have 100 ppl on a Diablo 2 server.. so what? You cant do anything but hack and slash in that game and beat the same places over and over..

No offense, but your just talking off the top of your head.. you haven't research or even looked into any of it. If you played WoW for a couple of months, I don't think you would feel the same. But actually a lot of gamers are incredibly loyal to game types for some stupid reason.. I personally try as many games as i can and keep an open mind to the reasoning behind their creation.

Well said.

I personally will never likely pay to play a game. However, I think some of them are justified to require monthly payments.

Think about it like movies. You can buy DVDs, omer watch old stuff on TV cheap or free. Or, you could go pay 7-10 buck every few nights to go watch a brand new movie.

Im the kind of person that can play shooter games for months at a time, and can watch movies like the Matrix, LOTR, or just about any decent Scifi / Fantasy movie everytime they are on TV. For me, its all about what I find in it. Playing UO is more about your interests, rather than the technology. It's kinda hard to explain. I suppose its the same reason people still build and race cars with 30 and 40 year old technology.

Basically, there is just that type of mind that can find pleasure in simpler things, that dont need the latest and greatest to be satisfied.

rachet you cant quote my whole past and simply say it's irrelevant and expect to get on with life. give me a bloody reason.

rachet Wrote:Its simple.. if you play a game that isn't pay by month, then your going to get a quality game that doesnt get updated except for general troubleshooting and tweaking.

im not some spoiled little brat who needs a new quest to do every day. diablo 2 is such an intricate game you could play it for years, making a new character every month and you still won't make the same character twice.

i've made maybe a dozen different characters on diablo 2, all of which were great characters until patch 1.1 came out. patch 1.1 changed everything, the smallest mistake in making your character and it would be ruined. it also made the final difficulty 10x harder, meaning just about every character not made properly was useless.

i had 3 types of amazons; one to do massive damage with a single shot at a time, another to do low to medium damage with 20 or so shots at once, and one that throws javelins, enriched with magical damage, at monsters.

i've made 3 different types of sorceresses; 1 all around balanced with ice, fire, lightning, one fire sorc, one lit sorc. the fire and lit sorcs were so strong because of something called synergies (training a certain skill makes another skill stronger)

i've made a barbarian that monsters can't kill. i've made a barbarian that is a support class character who improves everyone around him so they can kill everything in a matter of seconds.

i've made a paladin who will hit you 10 times in under 2 seconds, i've made a paladin who charges at you and deals a massive hit, then stuns and kills you. i've made another paladin that is specifically designed to fight the undead by hitting them with a holy bolt dealing thousands of damage and then creating an after affect hitting other monsters.

i've made assassins that set up traps all around you and you get killed by them all at once. you can't run, you can't stand still, you just die. i've made assassins that almost appear out of nowhere, hit you with a massive amount of damage, run away, and reappear a second later hitting you with another devastating hit.

diablo 2 is such an intricate and incredible game because there are literally endless possibilities in regards of the characters you can make. not one of my characters was the perfect one because each character had an almost perfect counter.

now consider the thousands of different items in diablo 2 that put one character over the other. my sorc could have the best gear in the game (for a sorc) and still get killed. yes, that's right, different characters have different gear. you can't give a barbarian a wand because he'd snap it in half and beat you with his hands. you can't give a sorceress a giant sword or armor because you'd waste all your stats leveling her strength when you should of put it into mana. sorceresses dont need big huge armor because they can deal massive amounts of damage and attack a monster from far away. barbarians need massive armor and super strong swords because they are right in the enemy's face. you have to level your characters and cater to their strengths.

rachet Wrote:But theirs nothing wrong with charging monthly, especially when the game has constantly new things added to it, new areas, enemies, storyline, items, technical support etc etc..

some games, like diablo 2, don't need that because of all the possibilities. if you don't see them, read my above post again.

rachet Wrote:Their 2 different games completely.

i agree, and i'm saying i would never pay the one where im dependent on other people to give me something to do.

rachet Wrote:Oh and i forgot to mention. Games like Diablo and diablo 2 have worlds hosted on Client computers not servers.. that doesnt make it "Genius" lol.. it makes it limited.. Diablo 2 generates random maps .. Woohoo.. thats not really an intricate game.. Diablo 2 is nothing compared to an MMORPG.. i wouldnt even call it that.. id simply call it an Online game lol. Even if u have 100 ppl on a Diablo 2 server.. so what? You cant do anything but hack and slash in that game and beat the same places over and over..

in fact it is genious because that saves blizzard millions of dollars that would be spent in having servers. all the game data is stored on everyone's pc, so why should i pay to have another pc host my shit.

MMORPG=massive multiplayer online role playing game... that's exactly what diablo 2 is. you create a character and play it the way you want, aside from the required quests that exist, which also exist to different extents in other games. at one point or another, if you want to get that special item, or special title, you have to go and do something specific. it is a massive multiplayer online game because there are litteraly thousands of people that play. while you won't encounter them all at once on a game like diablo, they are there none the less, and you will see them sooner or later. you still create the friends and enemies you would on a game like WOW where you say there are hundreds of people online.

rachet Wrote:No offense, but your just talking off the top of your head.. you haven't research or even looked into any of it. If you played WoW for a couple of months, I don't think you would feel the same. But actually a lot of gamers are incredibly loyal to game types for some stupid reason.. I personally try as many games as i can and keep an open mind to the reasoning behind their creation.

thanks for your brilliant observation, but i have indeed researched it. well no i didn't read up on diablo 2, i played the game, and that's as good as it gets. in fact i'd say you haven't researched diablo 2 and are just shooting it down at the little you do know about it and overlook everything else.

i keep saying this in loads of threads... "if you don't know someone, don't talk about them." you clearly have no idea how much i know about diablo 2 and how many possibilities there are in it. maybe you should give it a try before shooting it down.

and btw, the "an extra ferrari" comment was just a joke but then you talked about people needing excentricities and that's retarted. there's a small list of what you really need and 2 fancy ass sports cars isn't on it.

lindenwood Wrote:Think about it like movies. You can buy DVDs, omer watch old stuff on TV cheap or free. Or, you could go pay 7-10 buck every few nights to go watch a brand new movie.

everytime you pay your 7-10 bucks you see something completely different. imagine having to pay 25$ for your dvd when you buy it, and then paying 1$ evertime you watch it, or every month. or when you want to watch a bonus feature you have to pay 1$ because it's something beyond the actual movie and an extra. if you don't pay your 1$ everytime you watch the movie, then the movie disintegrates lol. it's a peposterous idea because you payed your money now you should be able to do as you want.

i agree with you lindenwood, it all depends on what you see in a game or movie.

ok that's long enough, bedtime

if more content is added to my dvd regularly, i might pay that dollar. ;/

Rachet is right though ...you can't really compare Diablo II to WoW. How BattleNET works is completely different than how WoW works. That makes all the difference.

To argue about why one is better than the other is just stupid. That's like saying "this ball of cheese has less calories than your carpet and is better for that reason."

Quote:in fact it is genious because that saves blizzard millions of dollars that would be spent in having servers. all the game data is stored on everyone's pc, so why should i pay to have another pc host my shit.

because a) if you keep all the information on your machine its easy as hell to cheat and b) because your pc cant host 10,000 people at once.

gg next map

Why the **** are we arguing about this? It's a personal choice that brought a really worthless discussion up. You are not to forced to play either game type and no game type is really better than the other. If someone wants to pay to play to get special features, let them. It takes upkeep to keep a game like WoW up. I'm sure they are greedy bastards too and make a lot of money, but damn, it's their money. Someone has made a game where people willingly pay to play, I'd say thats genius. If someone else wants to play UO free shards, then thats their choice to.

Fact is, paying for a game is just like paying for anything else that gives you joy. If you think its stupid to pay joy, maybe you should re-evaluate the drink you by. If you tend to by sodas, my a water, its cheaper and it does the job. See that cool car? Don't buy it, taxes on it are higher, by that electric car. Etc etc. I could give stupid ass examples all day. It's all about what something is worth to you.

My personal choice = the correct choice.
always.