MMOs:Like em' or not?

[jahcs]

MMo's are cheaper than smoking, drinking, crank, meth...

MMO's are cheaper than season tickets to your favorite sports team.

MMO's are cheaper than buying gas for your car to take Sunday drives.


It's all a matter of priorities. :)

[Guest]

[right][snapback]76567[/snapback][/right]

Exactly. I dont think the cost is at all prohibative. But I can think of many good reasons to say RL activities are better than any vidio game - even a free vidio game.

[Encore]

I confess I am a kid, and I only get 5 bucks a week, IF I do my chores. So usually I dont get anything, plus money burns a hole in my pocket. We may have the time, but we dont have the access to the money. And also, why couldn't they run WoW on Battlenet?

[Occhidiangela]

I confess I am a kid, and I only get 5 bucks a week, IF I do my chores. So usually I dont get anything, plus money burns a hole in my pocket. We may have the time, but we dont have the access to the money. And also, why couldn't they run WoW on Battlenet?
[right][snapback]76573[/snapback][/right]

They can't afford to.

Occhi

[Swiss Mercenary]

I confess I am a kid, and I only get 5 bucks a week, IF I do my chores. So usually I dont get anything, plus money burns a hole in my pocket. We may have the time, but we dont have the access to the money. And also, why couldn't they run WoW on Battlenet?
[right][snapback]76573[/snapback][/right]

Because MMORPGs = where the Real Money™ in gaming is at.

I mean, Blizzard simply needs to support the servers for 4 months + patch every so often... To make as much $ as they would from selling a whole new game. Without nearly as many development costs.

[Nystul]

For a long time, I never tried MMOs because of the monthly subscriptions, and a few vague concerns about commonly mentioned MMO issues (which all turn out to be real problems, unfortunately). After beta-testing WoW, I have to say the monthly fee is the least of the problems to me. The beta was really fun for a while; the game had real potential. But it is a true irony. Everything I hate about WoW are exactly the things you pay the subscription to get. They are exactly the things people complained about in UO and EQ and AC and every other popular MMO. Monsters that spawn on a timer in a world that never really changes, slow game pace, network problems and lag, hours of wasted time just navigating a massive world, a world full of players whose primary concern is getting better items, solo play getting completely monotonous because the game caters to parties, a rat race that truely never ends as everything stays the same but the numbers get bigger..

I don't think I will ever enjoy an MMO in the sustained manner in which I enjoy Diablo. It's cotton candy: too much fluff and not enough guts. Too many misfeatures and arghs ruining some decent game concepts. But it is probably just as well, because if I did play an MMO as much as Diablo, then said MMO would end up costing me thousands of dollars. And yes, that is a lot of money, even for some people who are all grown up and have jobs.

So, um, guess that's a no vote. :shuriken:

To each his own, though.

[Encore]

Well Said, Nystul, I still love Diablo.

[whyBish]

tech support where real people are available at convenient hours
Servers that recieve regular maintenance and have minimal downtime
High quality internet connection for the company servers
No/minimal waiting periods to log in

And does Blizzard have any SLA to meet in terms of this in the WoW contract with them?

With a clustered environment servers should never be 'down'. I work at a bank, and when we release software upgrades no-one needs to stop working. (well, we do it at 2am, but even if we did it in the middle of the day no-one would notice)

[Swiss Mercenary]

As long as people aren't canceling their subscriptions in significant enough numbers, Blizzard can afford to keep things running as they are.

As gamers, our tolerance levels (In respect with voting with our wallets) for what you've described are quite high - all this is just par for the course in the industry.

[Boutros]

My monthly fees since I started playing WoW have been about 90 dollars. I'm sitting around 24 days /played. That works out to be 15.6 cents an hour. Seems like a decent value for me.

[Armin]

Um... basically: what Nystul said :)

The monthly fees are, compared to other amounts I tend to spend for toys, really neglegible. Peanuts in Deutsche Bank terms :P

I tried AC, had a quick look at SWG (*still shudders*) and looked at a friend playing WoW for hours. Not my piece of cake. Even WoW still does NOT cater for the casual gamer IMO.

The downtime to actually meaningful gameplay ratio is awful in MMORPGs.
The worlds still feel totally artificial (spawn points... gaaah), there's almost no story, no real effect of whatever I (and thousands of other players) am doing.
The roleplay aspect is ruined by powerlevelers, item hunters and general munchkin mania.
The rule systems are all awful, numbers mean nothing (you go from 100 to 2000 hitpoints and 5 damage to 1000 damage and so what...) and combat never really changes.

Not my piece of cake. I'll rather download a few more NWN modules :wub:

[Darian]

...combat never really changes.

That's so not true, though. What works at level 14 doesn't work at level 35, and things are different still at level 60. What works in one place doesn't work in another. You have to think on your feet, and you have to be with other people who can do the same.

[SetBuilder]

All I can say is I get a paycheck every two weeks. Every paycheck, I go out and buy a dvd. My movie collection has gotten quite large, but there are many more movies I'd like to have. Why would I want to spend $12 a month on a game that's no better than what I can play on my LAN, when I can just play LAN, and get a THIRD dvd each month? A month's worth of online playing is in no way better than a movie that I can watch, and continue to watch, for the next decade or three?

[Quark]

A month's worth of online playing is in no way better than a movie that I can watch, and continue to watch, for the next decade or three?
[right][snapback]76731[/snapback][/right]

Emphasis mine. You really watch all of those movies as much as you can to justify the same time I could get out of one month of an MMORPG subscription? I can't watch a movie more than, say, twice in a single month. I can certainly play WoW more than that :). I choose to do both.

[SetBuilder]

Emphasis mine.  You really watch all of those movies as much as you can to justify the same time I could get out of one month of an MMORPG subscription?  I can't watch a movie more than, say, twice in a single month.  I can certainly play WoW more than that :).  I choose to do both.
[right][snapback]76732[/snapback][/right]

I work 60 hours a week. I have over two hundred games I can play on my LAN. Do you really think I'm concerned about some game somebody wants to charge me to play online? Really?

When you have a DVD collection 200 movies large, you have a much greater selection of mindless crap to watch than a 20 dvd collection. Therefore, you're more likely to watch movies more often, as most good movies can be watched many many times over the course of a couple years without getting old, if there's a good mix in there.

Also, in your conjecture, you're limiting the time to one month. What I'm saying is that I'm going to maintain that DVD for at least ten years, probably closer to 50. You will gain benefit from that one month of your MMORPG for exactly one month, no longer. My benefit is much MUCH higher in the long run.

By the same note, I could get dishes for my house each month. A year's worth of $12 a month ($144 total) could definately improve my dish collection, especially for oven cooking and silverware, and I'd DEFINATELY use those more than you play your games.

Don't bother trying to convince me that paying to play online is worth it. I still play Fallout 2, which is only single player. Last time I picked it up I spent $10. That copy has lasted me 3 years. I can buy games that will last me a long long time and cost very little. You buy games that cost you a lot to start, and will last no time at all, without a monthly fee.

I have a computer that will run the most beautiful games in the world, with 4 GB of RAM, with a 512MB CGI Editors card, with two 10,000 RPM SATA HDDs, with an AUDIGY 4 PRO sound card, with a set of Logitech Z-5500 speakers. I've made the investment up front. It's a clear and concise INSULT to ask me to keep paying every month for something that I will play, among all my other games, maybe an hour a month.

MMORPGs also have too much of the graphics detail being passed over the web. I've never seen an MMO with even close to the graphical detail or quality as your single player/lan/free online games, like UT 2K4, Doom3, HL2, etc.

Try to convice me to pay per month to play your games.

[Nystul]

MMORPGs also have too much of the graphics detail being passed over the web. I've never seen an MMO with even close to the graphical detail or quality as your single player/lan/free online games, like UT 2K4, Doom3, HL2, etc.

Try to convice me to pay per month to play your games.
[right][snapback]76736[/snapback][/right]

The graphics aren't passed over the web on the fly. They are stored on your computer like any other game. The main issue with graphical detail is that you can have tons of characters on screen in an MMOG, so character detail has to be kept minimal. You also have a lot of open terrain usually, so Doom 3 is not a fair comparison in that regard. The sheer amount of content that has to be produced also limits polishing details (not only for graphics, but for more important issues as well).

As for the economic thing, it's pretty pointless to debate it further. There are people who think it is worth the money and people who don't. Personally, I don't. But we could just as well debate leasing cars, or buying candy bars individually for 25 cents instead of getting the 10 pack.

[Boutros]

Don't bother trying to convince me that paying to play online is worth it.
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Try to convice me to pay per month to play your games.
[right][snapback]76736[/snapback][/right]

?

[SetBuilder]

Exactly.

[Munkay]

?
[right][snapback]76740[/snapback][/right]

:lol:

[Rinnhart]

Exactly.
[right][snapback]76741[/snapback][/right]

Damn Oregonians.