Pay To Play? or not?

[Trevyc]

I wouldn't expect a game to stand up to WoW. Even though I dislike WoW, I can't deny that it has a very large number of players.

If you expect that Aion will be better than WoW, and it turns out its not, you're going to be very disappointed. Why even compare it? Why not just enjoy the game for being itself

[TwilightAngel]

Ok Aion probly go P2P on how they put the stuff....the really bad thing about F2P games is that GM normaly dont give jack s**t about ppl or take there sweet lil time on fixing sumthing trust me i have played alot of them. Now GW doesnt fit in this area bc its a totaly in a diffrent game area lol

[Elphaba's Devout]

Just to prove the bad customer service in F2P games... Does Guild Wars, an F2P, have GM's? Does it? I don't know! I never saw one, I never spoke to one, I never heard of one, for all I know, all there is is a frog that announces events and Ranger called Gaile Gray that is always as "Do not disturb"...

[Yakuzan]

I think the main reason it's P2P is that:

1- The GM's are paid.
2- Server Maintenances aren't done alone.
3- Servers are expensive(especially for MMO's)
4- There is a team of people who work all the time:
-Server stability
-Fixes and bugs
-General Unbalance(ex: Some classes need to be nerfed)
5- Updates

One thing is for sure I don't like P2P mmorpg's who release expansions you actually need to pay.

[Ipmia]

Originally Posted by Yakuzan

One thing is for sure I don't like P2P mmorpg's who release expansions you actually need to pay.

So if you enjoy, let's say warcraft 3, you not gona buy the expanssions (or all any games with expansions for that matter ) ? i believe not. You pay for a game support and maintenance that allow you to play with you're friends, this include a game as polished as a mmorpg can be AND updates to fix the issues ( that always occure in a mmorpg , its jsut how thing are) as well as a all support you should have.

Expansions are a totally different thing. And eventhough i appreciated not to pay the Lineage2 expansions i honnestly wouldnt mind paying for them.

[Trevyc]

From purchasing the game and paying $15 a month, thats more than enough money to pay the people to create more content (expansions). There is no reason people should make a KILLER profit. I, for one, will leave Aion behind if it ends up being P2P and Pay for Expansion.

[TwilightAngel]

Originally Posted by Trevyc

From purchasing the game and paying $15 a month, thats more than enough money to pay the people to create more content (expansions). There is no reason people should make a KILLER profit. I, for one, will leave Aion behind if it ends up being P2P and Pay for Expansion.

I never seen a P2P that does that GW is F2P but who have to buy the game frist, BUT im not sure if Ever Quest was P2P and u have to buy the expansion.
The new content is the exoansion and liek you said that 15$ is what pays for the new stuff

[Dovie'andi]

But, if there were no GMs, who can you spend hours ticking off? Who will you whine to when someone steals your mob? Who will you insult every time something bad happens? Who will you make insane conspiracy theories up... about?

*I am in no way serious, this is a joke, move along*

[Trevyc]

Why would there not be any GMs? The money from purchases and monthly payment is more than enough money to support the cost of servers, maintenance, employee cost and everything. If it weren't, games like CoH/CoV would charge more, but they don't.

[Tranquility]

Fact is that MMO´s charge that amout because they have always done it ,and most people accept it.

[Ipmia]

Originally Posted by Tranquility

Fact is that MMO´s charge that amout because they have always done it ,and most people accept it.

wrong, it was cheaper a few years ago, but then again the devlopment costs werent that huge and the servers either.

anyways what the point on arguing about a (imo) fair price for something that keep you entertainned for several monthes ? i highly doubt that most ( not all hopefully) of the game you buy keep you playing that long.

[skimike]

Originally Posted by Ipmia

wrong, it was cheaper a few years ago, but then again the devlopment costs werent that huge and the servers either.

anyways what the point on arguing about a (imo) fair price for something that keep you entertainned for several monthes ? i highly doubt that most ( not all hopefully) of the game you buy keep you playing that long.

Speaking of entertainment and the costs thereof, a general admission ticket to a movie in my area costs $9.50 USD (7.02048 euros). If the average movie is 2 hours long (erring on the side of generosity, as you will see), then the average cost of "entertainment" is $4.75 USD (3.51024 euros) per hour. Given how the "entertainment industry" constantly likens video games to movies, if I conservatively play an MMO for 1 hour every night in a month, assuming a 30-day month, that's $142.50 USD (105.30720 euros). Now, assume you pay $15.00 USD (11.0853 euros) for 30 hours of entertainment, that's $0.50 USD (0.369486 euros) per hour. Pretty reasonable, if you ask me.

[Rockjaw]

Originally Posted by Mark

That only works for GuildWars because...

ANet doesn't have to pay for a ton of servers.

Their players host their own games. Everything is instanced.

Ummm, no. Instanced does not equal peer to peer (at least, not in this instance). Guild Wars runs on secure, NCsoft-hosted servers, and always does. You don't go into a peer to peer connection when you enter a mission. (For one thing, what if you're playing solo?) You always connect to a server that we host. This is a fact.

Guild Wars works (as a business model) because the server architecture and network programming is very damn clever, and because we sell a lot of games. That's the business model. Always has been.

As for Aion - we haven't made any official announcements about pricing yet, and we won't until much, much closer to the launch.

[Trevyc]

Thanks for that tid bit, Rockjaw

[zakumura]

Rockjaw, when you know the price please come tell us