When business interferes with game play.

[Zthun]

This post is mostly a mini rant that hopes to start an abstract discussion about the topic. This is something I've had on my mind for awhile.

I've been playing Rift now for some time, and I think it has a fair cash shop. Just about everything you can buy in the shop, you can get in game, and that's OK in my book. You can pay for stuff to skip content with real money if you want, but it's also possible to buy the credits with in game currency as well. The problem, however, is the game itself is somewhat boring; I have a feeling that IF I hit max level, I won't have much more that I actually want to do, and will just quit slowly after. I'm only level 40 as of this writing and I can pretty much conclude that the game is basically a carbon copy of World of Warcraft with a much better class system and some world events. I will still choose this game over WoW for the following reasons:

• I played WoW to death for over 2 years.
• The friends that made the game worth playing are no longer playing.
• My account was hacked multiple times.
• The community has gone to shit ever since they introduced the dungeon finder and cross realm play.
• I really don't want to pay the $15 / month fee anymore.

The last bullet point is the most important to me. I would much rather pay $15 - $30 per month for permanent items that are of my choosing; this allows me to come and go as I please, and play whenever I want without an obligation. That's an important feature to me when I pick an MMORPG to play. If I have to pay a subscription fee, I can't stop playing it. If I do, I feel that I've wasted my money. The funny part is, Rift is just WoW. You can try to twist it to say it's not, but it is. It just has a few different features and some different content. I'm tired of this system and would love something different. Enter Archeage.

Oh, Archeage, how disappointed I was in that. I remember starting that game and thinking how amazing the game play was. The combat was fluid, the crafting allowed for limitless possibilities, and the visuals were breathtaking; it has some great music too. I knew that I could seriously get into it, but the core part of the game, primarily buying land to actually participate in the property building and construction of the world, is behind the subscription pay wall. You must pay $15 per month to have access to this content, and that killed the entire game for me. It really pissed me off that this game is marketed as free to play. If you truly want to enjoy it, you'll need to fork over the sub money. DC Universe Online had the same problem. I was able to enjoy the story, but if I wanted to truly enjoy the features of the game, I needed to fork over a subscription fee.

I hate the subscription business model. I'd much rather make a one time payment and be done with it. What's even worse is when games are marketed as free to play, but they have the subscription fee as 'optional' when it really isn't if you actually want to play normally. To me, this is worse than DLC. At least with DLC, you pay once and you get your content. With this, you decide not to pay, and you lose access to play the game, or you lose a very important chunk of the game's features. It's a stupid model that interferes with the actual game itself. Screw that. Discuss.

[Tanooki]

That last bit you brought up, hating the sub model, pay once and it just stands I agree with. It's also why I've never given WoW, everquest or the rest even a thought. The amount of scratch those companies get with optional item buys and charging for the initial discs or downloads is enough, it's just pad and you're forced to keep feeding that beast or you have the negatives you thought about.

NCSoft/Arena answered your need though partly with originally Guild Wars, a co-operative online RPG. It was story based, had 3 addon chapters you could buy for less than the original main title, and there was lots to do and took a long time to clear. Even after that you still had the team, guild, and 1on1 battles to go further. Like 5 years after the fact they really inspected the whole WoW world and all the bitching and loving on it online about that system. In the end when Guild Wars 2 dropped, they copied what WoW did, STILL made it a ONE TIME PAYMENT ONLY model, and they support that with the Black Lion Shop within where you can buy so many extra items and pure fluff that has zero impact on your ability to clear the game in a timely fashion or do anything else you'd enjoy. FUrthermore they took all the stuff people as I said loved/hated on WoW for and implemented the good, and made fixes to the bad to not copy that. Due to that the game has developed a huge online world. Shortly this year they'll be releasing their first add-on package and it looks absolutely huge, even adding in new stuff like hang gliding modes of flight too. You may want to look into that game as it doesn't cost all that much and comes in different package (payment and more fluff) options.

I had been playing it about a year, did GW for 4 years before that. The only reason I honestly stopped as I hadn't even seen a 1/4 maybe a 1/5 of the land was that I did it as a thing with my best friend every evening because he had small kids and never could get out of the home. He died a couple years back the day after Christmas. I tried to go into it a few times after, I just got bored and depressed as I had no one to play with. Tried a little later as my nephew discovered it, but I just couldn't get back into it. I've fired it up a couple times in the last few months, but I've felt lost and with no guild to interact with I just kind of saved my login/pass so I wouldn't lose it and shelved it.

[retroguy]

I've never played an MMO before, but I am thinking about Elder Scrolls Online precisely because they dropped the subscription and made it so all you have to do is buy the game and that's it. Of course, the servers won't be active forever unless fans of the game set up their own after the official ones go away, but that's another discussion entirely.

[Az]

Although it's a stretch I still think it's relevant to the original topic.

Call of Duty DLC Map Packs: When joining a game online you're always matched up with players that have the same packs as you. You might join a lobby that has less than you, but all that means is those maps only you have will never be in the rotation. That being said; Call of Duty: World at War has the most fucked up implementation of forcing DLC down your throat I've ever seen.

The DLC maps are always thrown into the map rotation in every lobby of every game mode. Even if no one in the lobby has any of them, it still pops up as being the map the next match takes place on. Once the game starts if you don't have the map you're booted from the lobby and the XBL store is brought up prompting you to purchase the map packs. If a lobby of 12 players exists and nobody has the maps all 12 players are booted back to the main menu. Sure there's a vote system in place to skip a potential DLC map, but that's useless unless everyone is paying attention and votes against it.

This game doesn't have a fraction of the users of other CoD games. You will run into the situation of the lobby you are in is literally the only game being played and all players being booted to the main menu because nobody owns the DLC. Or, maybe you're the one guy that does have it, and when the match starts is you versus nobody.

Taking that into account along with the fact that this game is completely hacked to hell and has been for years with absolutely no effort put forth to patch it, coupled with the fact the DLC maps are still priced at the same fucking price as they were on release 5 years ago (yet the game MSRP is 1/4th the original), I don't know what the hell Activision or Treyarch is thinking. It's wishful thinking to hope people would buy this DLC that is useless due to modders but still charging full price for it? Outrageous.

[Zthun]

Although it's a stretch I still think it's relevant to the original topic.

Call of Duty DLC Map Packs: When joining a game online you're always matched up with players that have the same packs as you. You might join a lobby that has less than you, but all that means is those maps only you have will never be in the rotation. That being said; Call of Duty: World at War has the most fucked up implementation of forcing DLC down your throat I've ever seen.

The DLC maps are always thrown into the map rotation in every lobby of every game mode. Even if no one in the lobby has any of them, it still pops up as being the map the next match takes place on. Once the game starts if you don't have the map you're booted from the lobby and the XBL store is brought up prompting you to purchase the map packs. If a lobby of 12 players exists and nobody has the maps all 12 players are booted back to the main menu. Sure there's a vote system in place to skip a potential DLC map, but that's useless unless everyone is paying attention and votes against it.

This game doesn't have a fraction of the users of other CoD games. You will run into the situation of the lobby you are in is literally the only game being played and all players being booted to the main menu because nobody owns the DLC. Or, maybe you're the one guy that does have it, and when the match starts is you versus nobody.

Taking that into account along with the fact that this game is completely hacked to hell and has been for years with absolutely no effort put forth to patch it, coupled with the fact the DLC maps are still priced at the same fucking price as they were on release 5 years ago (yet the game MSRP is 1/4th the original), I don't know what the hell Activision or Treyarch is thinking. It's wishful thinking to hope people would buy this DLC that is useless due to modders but still charging full price for it? Outrageous.

At least the DLC was pay once, and you keep it for good. Imaging if CoD had a sub model and you can only play online by paying a monthly fee.

[Daria]

When it comes to online gaming I actually really prefer the free-to-play model. I refuse to pay a recurring fee; but I will toss in a few dollars here or there for non-essential items to support a developer.

Secret World is pay once, and I enjoy the Lovecraftian horror theme and adventure game elements, although right now I'm cracked out on Path of Exile because it's not Diablo in all the right ways.

I did play WoW for a while a few years ago, got up to my 60s on free trials, definitely not a game I'd ever pay for. I was bored before the trial even ran out.