Curse

PuppyEater · Jan 02, 2010, 04:49 AM // 04:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhavv

Then please feel free to prove with any evidence / links that GW has not earned enough revenue for NCSoft before making things up based on zero evidence based purely on your personal opinions.

I never said it did, merely pointing out that it is entirely possible.

bhavv · Jan 02, 2010, 05:10 AM // 05:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by PuppyEater

I never said it did, merely pointing out that it is entirely possible.

And if it did happen, I doubt Anet are going to have any difficulty finding another company instead.

Gun Pierson · Jan 02, 2010, 09:37 AM // 09:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhavv

And if it did happen, I doubt Anet are going to have any difficulty finding another company instead.

This is not something like changing your shirt when it's dirty. Contracts, legal rights, money and jobs are involved. I wish it was that easy.

NCSoft, a giant MMO publisher (pay to play) that funds a free to play MMO...oh the irony.

lorenna · Jan 02, 2010, 05:24 PM // 17:24

most p2p mmorpgs ive tried i diddnt like tbh i chose gw in the first place not because it was free but because of what the game offered. to me when i played wow for all of about a month it was just kill kill kill level kill more kill..gw is a little different.

if they had decided to make it p2p maybe 2/3 years ago i might have. now..i wouldnt and i wouldnt pay to play gw2 either. now that im a student also and i cant even really afford food im glad i chose a game i dont pay for per month.

but people are right..guild wars is getting a bit outdated and we are having less and less content added. if they did decide to make us pay..which they wont i would be one if the first to leave. besides their whole model is based around 'free to play' not all of us have mommy and daddy pay for everything

genofreek · Jan 02, 2010, 09:05 PM // 21:05

I play for a couple weeks every few months or so as it is. XD The game hasn't put out an expansion or campaign in over two years now, and the vast majority of players are done. I'm not opposed to paying for a bit of content -- I got the BMP, storage, costumes, and a few other little fun things -- but I can't justify a monthly subscription for something I won't even be using half the time.

Fril Estelin · Jan 02, 2010, 09:37 PM // 21:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gun Pierson

NCSoft, a giant MMO publisher (pay to play) that funds a free to play MMO...oh the irony.

It's quite logical for an MMO publisher to develop its portfolio and not focus only on one product business model. And GW is not only its business model.

NoKey · Jan 02, 2010, 09:50 PM // 21:50

GW going pay to play this late is not feasible. GW2 on the other hand is possible (but not likely).

GW didn't survive because it was "free." It survived because it is fun for those who enjoyed it. The community kept it alive. Lineage II is still alive and thats pay. Ragnarok Online is still alive that's also pay but recently opened a free server. A pay to play game doesn't make a game "terrible."

Again GW going pay this late is not feasible. But lets look at GW2 shall we?

You wouldn't pay to play GW2 if they decided to go pay to play? Seriously? That statement you made just sounds like you're freeloading. You haven't even had a taste of GW2 yet and you say you wouldn't pay to play it if it did go that route?

I play games because I enjoy it. I wouldn't care if a game that I enjoy is pay to play or not, but when I'm bored of it or find something new I'll stop. The opening post has mentioned that we (or some of us) all go to movies and pay a fee for enjoyment.

I'm sure we all have "bought" games to play for enjoyment.

On the initial release of GW Prophicies it was around $50.00? Factions as well and also Nightfall. If all of us has bought from the beginning to end (I know I did) We've all pretty much have paid $150.00 each in total (not includeing GWEN or collectors). I am aware of price drop, but I'm talking about the players from beginning to end.

Sure call it a waste of money, but thats just you being ignorant. We live in a world of piracy. Oh the many options we have yet people still pay for certain things and you wonder to yourself "It's great, but why pay?". Silly Catface.

There are financial reasons why MMORPGs went pay to play vs micro transactions or none at all. Alot of MMORPGS that went Micro Trans tend to become unbalanced due to the shop items. Also going "pay to play" isn't up for the developer to decide but the publisher (I'm assuming).

You all do know NCsoft was a dying publisher up untill Aion's success correct? The amount of servers to keep running for all of their MMORPGs costs alot more then they could have handled. Right now NCsoft isn't even on the top 20 publishers.

Also, the term "Free to play" means we wouldn't even need to pay for anything. That means even the standalone releases they have been throwing at us which we ALL have bought.

Yes, I'm a student as well (I go to Art Institute for Game Programming). I have to pay for my own tuitions and so on. That doesn't stop me from "pay to playing" a game that I enjoy with my friends (Yeah, I don't have mommy and daddy to pay for everything too).

This argument can just keep going and going as the world is made up of people who aren't willing to pay for anything vs the people who would pay.

I can see the two groups are already throwing bullshit at each argument.

I doubt my post will knock any sense into people. It'll most likely make things worse, but I like doing it out of enjoyment.

Gun Pierson · Jan 02, 2010, 11:08 PM // 23:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

It's quite logical for an MMO publisher to develop its portfolio and not focus only on one product business model. And GW is not only its business model.

Indeed, GW is the exception in NCSoft's portfolio and that's exactly the point.

Fril Estelin · Jan 02, 2010, 11:24 PM // 23:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gun Pierson

Indeed, GW is the exception in NCSoft's portfolio and that's exactly the point.

What I meant is that they focus on a mix of things in MMOs and business model is not a core element of it (as GW proves, you can make money without asking for a subscription). And GW/Anet did inspire a lot of stuff in the whole lot of NCsoft's other games.

Daesu · Jan 03, 2010, 12:06 AM // 00:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

What I meant is that they focus on a mix of things in MMOs and business model is not a core element of it (as GW proves, you can make money without asking for a subscription). And GW/Anet did inspire a lot of stuff in the whole lot of NCsoft's other games.

If your last release was 2+ years ago (GWEN in Aug 2007) and you have to wait for at least another year before GW2 is ready to be released, is it even making money?

The answer for that could have been micro transactions, through GW1, to support themselves until GW2 is ready, BUT just look at the flames in the micro transaction thread and how many people are asking others to boycott their store.

So the question becomes, if GW2 fails, is NCSoft going to continue to support a money losing franchise?

headlesshobbs · Jan 03, 2010, 12:40 AM // 00:40

From what I understand in MMO models is if you start out as p2p, you go f2p as a means to widen your audience, but give/limit specific features or run cash shop items. I hardly see anything about these games ever consider the pay route and if they did, it's a means to kill them off. That or they manage to really narrow down their user base as a way to manage servers.

For GW to do p2p, it just wouldn't work, not now, not ever. They can try this with a whole different game and have better luck with it.

Fril Estelin · Jan 03, 2010, 12:52 AM // 00:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

The answer for that could have been micro transactions, through GW1, to support themselves until GW2 is ready, BUT just look at the flames in the micro transaction thread and how many people are asking others to boycott their store.

I don't think that you can assess the updates' success by looking at the amount of dissatisfaction expressed on Guru. People buying these updates and happy with them are probably happily playing the game without complaining on Guru and there's no way to know how many of these there are. I bet that these updates pay more (if not much more) than what they cost, which is a nice bonus for Anet and NCsoft given the 5-year age of GW1.

Gun Pierson · Jan 03, 2010, 01:03 AM // 01:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

as GW proves, you can make money without asking for a subscription

Yeah but not enough to make it attractive for NCSOft to fund working on both titles at once and hire 25 more people for the live team while 200 work on GW2. And that sucks man, because it's the reason why we've had no more new playable content since EoTN. And now it's too late for the playerbase anyway, unless it takes another 3 years before GW2 gets released.

Regina posted here on guru that they would barely get out of the costs if they wanted to develop an area like SF.

Sure I want GW2 to be free to play, but not at the cost of my gaming experience. There are already enough cheap games out there. It's much harder to find a quality game that also delivers quantity to keep you busy for years.

Daesu · Jan 03, 2010, 05:57 AM // 05:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

I don't think that you can assess the updates' success by looking at the amount of dissatisfaction expressed on Guru. People buying these updates and happy with them are probably happily playing the game without complaining on Guru and there's no way to know how many of these there are. I bet that these updates pay more (if not much more) than what they cost, which is a nice bonus for Anet and NCsoft given the 5-year age of GW1.

Never underestimate the amount of dissatisfaction guru people can build up when they have decided to campaign against a feature, like the micro transactions. Some of them would go all out and complain in every single fansite they know of and recruit even more people to join them in their campaign against ANet's micro transactions.

So if they are successful, ANet's free-to-play business model would fail even more. Therefore, no subscription, no micro transactions, no new human resources to work on GW2 or Live team, implying fewer content updates.

darkknightkain · Jan 03, 2010, 07:27 AM // 07:27

/unsigned

I'd much rather to have Micro-transactions than Subscription-fees, GW1 and GW2.

The difference is obvious
- Micro-transactions - you can pick and choose what you want to buy/use, and simply skip everything else what you are not interested.
- Subscription-fees - you are stuck paying for everything whether you wanted/going to use them or not.

reaper with no name · Jan 03, 2010, 07:43 AM // 07:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

If your last release was 2+ years ago (GWEN in Aug 2007) and you have to wait for at least another year before GW2 is ready to be released, is it even making money?

The answer for that could have been micro transactions, through GW1, to support themselves until GW2 is ready, BUT just look at the flames in the micro transaction thread and how many people are asking others to boycott their store.

So the question becomes, if GW2 fails, is NCSoft going to continue to support a money losing franchise?

Yes, it already made the money back when EotN came out. Now they're coasting on it.

Just because they aren't making money for these particular years doesn't mean they aren't making money over the long run. It just means that instead of constant flows of small amounts of money, they get sudden bursts of large amounts of money.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

Never underestimate the amount of dissatisfaction guru people can build up when they have decided to campaign against a feature, like the micro transactions. Some of them would go all out and complain in every single fansite they know of and recruit even more people to join them in their campaign against ANet's micro transactions.

So if they are successful, ANet's free-to-play business model would fail even more. Therefore, no subscription, no micro transactions, no new human resources to work on GW2 or Live team, implying fewer content updates.

And if GW switched to subscription fees, these people (plus many, many more) would do just that, and cause it to fail even faster.

Please, stop shooting your own foot.

Daesu · Jan 03, 2010, 12:20 PM // 12:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Yes, it already made the money back when EotN came out. Now they're coasting on it.

Just because they aren't making money for these particular years doesn't mean they aren't making money over the long run. It just means that instead of constant flows of small amounts of money, they get sudden bursts of large amounts of money.

You must think that they have made such HUGE billions of dollars from GWEN that they can just coast on it forever and ever. That is not the view that Regina presented to their customers, but of course your assumption would support your point that ANet is ALWAYS filthy rich and every content update from them has to be free.

Because of the fact that they have no new release since Aug 2007 and it would take about another year for GW2 to be released, they need to draw revenue to sustain themselves + hire new development staff to provide us with much needed GW1 content update and work on GW2 at the same time.

Quote:

And if GW switched to subscription fees, these people (plus many, many more) would do just that, and cause it to fail even faster.

Please, stop shooting your own foot.

If they dont support subscription fees, and customers dont want them to provide micro transaction, and customers want them to provide free content update every 4-6 months? How are they going to achieve that without requesting for more money from NCSoft who has shown that they would rather invest in Aion which is subscription based?

lorenna · Jan 03, 2010, 12:29 PM // 12:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoKey

You wouldn't pay to play GW2 if they decided to go pay to play? Seriously? That statement you made just sounds like you're freeloading. You haven't even had a taste of GW2 yet and you say you wouldn't pay to play it if it did go that route?

some of us can say we wont pay to play gw2 without even seeing it because we cant afford to weither its a good game or not. i paid to play wow for a while because at the time i could afford it..like 3 or 4 years ago lol. i diddnt bother even trying aion cause i cant afford the 10 pound a month or whatever it is..i know it doesnt sound a lot but the whole point of this thread was something about paying to go see movies i dont even do that. its the reason i play gw and besides gw single player games every now and then that are either given as gifts or i already own.

now if and when it comes out in 2011 or whenever they get their act together and decide to go p2p and im in a better position to pay yes your right i would try it before saying i wont pay. as i said not all of us have mommy and daddys credit cards

WinterSnowblind · Jan 03, 2010, 12:38 PM // 12:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

If your last release was 2+ years ago (GWEN in Aug 2007) and you have to wait for at least another year before GW2 is ready to be released, is it even making money?

The answer for that could have been micro transactions, through GW1, to support themselves until GW2 is ready, BUT just look at the flames in the micro transaction thread and how many people are asking others to boycott their store.

So the question becomes, if GW2 fails, is NCSoft going to continue to support a money losing franchise?

Once again, you're listening to a very vocal minority. The vast majority of players will have no problem paying for little expansions. It's not going to destroy GW2. In the same way I could tell you to go to any random videogame forum, you'll see people bashing games like Halo or Final Fantasy to death, to the point where you'd assume nobody likes these games. However, when Reach and FFXIII come out, I still guarantee they sell millions within days.

The choice to drop support of GW1 almost entirely is a little odd. In my opinion they should have continued with another full campaign, instead of released the EOTN expansion, but they decided to focus full efforts onto GW2 so they can do more complex things, which probably also involves releasing mini-expansions, ala the bonus mission pack every few months via microtransactions.

I could just as easily ask you, when sales for Aion start to dry up and people stop playing the game, will NCSoft continue to support that? GW2 using microstransactions means people can choose to purchase content whenever they want. It means a lot more casual fans who only play the game occasionally might come back with some friends and start playing again for another month or two and purcahse a few of these packs. It'll distribute the earnings through-out the games lifespan a lot more eevenly. And at least in my opinion, is a far better way to run a game.

WinterSnowblind · Jan 03, 2010, 12:41 PM // 12:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

If they dont support subscription fees, and customers dont want them to provide micro transaction, and customers want them to provide free content update every 4-6 months? How are they going to achieve that without requesting for more money from NCSoft who has shown that they would rather invest in Aion which is subscription based?

Again, you're basing this completely on assumption. How do you know they'd rather invest in Aion? Because, it was released three months ago, as opposed to a game that's nearly 5 years old?