MMOs:Like em' or not?

[Refrigerator]

For me, it's not so much the money factor. I know that if I wanted to play it badly enough, I would find room for more money somewhere. It's not that I wouldn't play it enough for the monthly fee. It's that I'd probably end up playing too much for my own good. WoW was my first MMO experience, and it just SUCKED time like I'd never seen before. Thank goodness I tried it during summer, when I did have all that time to spend.

If I did get the game, I would enjoy it, and it'd be worth the money, but I'm busy enough as it is right now and can't afford all that time that I would spend playing it. Make no mistake, I would end up playing it. A lot. A lot for me, anyways.

Staying away from it is safest, for me. :blush:

[Encore]

I alot of us have to admit that old games are fun. Graphics smaphics, the old games are just easy yet fun to play. And they're also cheap, too. So here's something: Two $10 dollar games, a DVD, a pizza and tax roughly equals to a $50 dollar game and its subscription.

[Quark]

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.

We've all shown pointing the money in other directions is pointless - you can make or take 15 bucks easy by doing that.

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.

If you enjoy the game, would you pay to keep enjoying it? Fallout 2 might be a great find for you, and I still go back to Planescape: Torment more often than any other game probably, but that doesn't preclude me from enjoying other newer games.

You buy games that cost you a lot to start, and will last no time at all, without a monthly fee.

:angry: Another person is calling me some money waster. The only thing people here know I paid for recently is WoW, but I'm the worst person with money ever according to this board!

'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.

Then we're at the point -> If you're only gonna play an hour, don't pay for it. I happen to play a lot, so my investment is quite worth it.

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.

Oh please, compare in the same genre at least. No genre looks as good as the FPS genre. And yet you're talking about Fallout 2 in the same post. What do you want? Old, cheap, and not highly-graphical, or brand spanking new and shiny?

[jahcs]

I alot of us have to admit that old games are fun. Graphics smaphics, the old games are just easy yet fun to play. And they're also cheap, too. So here's something: Two $10 dollar games, a DVD, a pizza and tax roughly equals to a $50 dollar game and its subscription.
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The trick is finding games in the bargain bin that still run with modern hardware. Failure to load and lots of lock ups and crashes can be so common the games become unplayable.

[Mithrandir]

What it comes down to, in the end, is that everyone is different. If you're happy with 200 DVDs and new silverware, that's great. If you're happy playing MMO's - hey, that's just great too. Not everyone likes watching movies and would rather spend money to play an online computer game... oh noes, the world is going to end because people are paying to play video games.

No one's trying to "convert" anyone else to the dark side of MMO gaming, just trying to point out that either viewpoint is completely valid given the correct reasons.

I played DAoC for two years, paid $12 a month (plus a second account for about a year), and was completely happy. I haven't been playing MMOGs for a while and am, surprise!, still completely happy. In fact, I recently got oldschool RPG nostalgic and downloaded an emulator and some ROMs and am having a blast. But that doesn't change the fact that playing MMO's is still much more cost effective than most hobbies... buying a game for $10 and keeping it for three years is not the norm for anyone, but rather an exception.

In fact, I pay nothing for my ROMs and am therefore infinity times more cost effective than anyone else in this thread and you all therefore make me sick with your tremendously gluttonous spending habits. :blush: Or something like that :)

Also, I'm going to have to agree that it's borderline ridiculous to expect the same level of graphic quality from an MMO as an FPS. You can't have 200+ people on a screen at once in an FPS and you don't have the huge open spaces in an FPS like you do in an MMO. You need completely different things out of the engines that power these two different genres of games.

[Hammerskjold]

>What do you think, are MMOs a thing to behold or a waste of time and money?

I doubt there's one definitive answer to your question, since it really becomes a cost vs value thing. For some the social aspect of a MMOG is worth the cost, so they do feel they're getting good value for their money. For others that has no interest in anything a mmog can offer, paying zero dollars is already too expensive.

As for the monthly fee, I think the comparison to a single player or free multiplayer games doesn't really work. MMOGs are more similar to joining a social club with a membership fee, and monthly dues. They need some form of dues, since they need to maintain the clubhouse, pay the people that maintain the clubhouse, pay the security guards, pay for the trophies and special events exclusive to the club, etc etc.

[Griselda]

Damn Oregonians.
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Yeah, you guys up there in Vancouver, WA are *so* different from those of us down here in Oregon. :P

[Nystul]

The trick is finding games in the bargain bin that still run with modern hardware.  Failure to load and lots of lock ups and crashes can be so common the games become unplayable.
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I tried to install *all* of my computer games on my new computer. The only post-DOS game I have that doesn't run problem-free (and in fact doesn't run at all) on my new rig is Alice. All of my other games run without problems, going back to Chessmaster 5000, GLQuake, and Red Alert. Alice is a real puzzler, because it is a Quake3 engine game and therefor it seems like it should run flawlessly, but I can't get it to install at all.

[Brista]

I work 60 hours a week. I have over two hundred games I can play on my LAN. [right][snapback]76736[/snapback][/right]

I used to buy one-two games a month

Now I buy one-two games a year

For me the difference with MMOs is that they last so much longer. Majesty was a great game - I clocked it in 3 days though. Nox about a week. Seven Kingdoms I played for about two weeks then got bored of. Redguard, Panzer General II, Arcanum I barely got further than an initial look before I dumped them to play something else

There are exceptions, games I've played on and off for several years like Homm3 and Diablo2, but they are not the rule

Recently I bought EQ2 in November and WoW in February

Playing MMOs has been a big difference in my playing habits

Cost aside, what motivates me to play is the production quality (they are very nicely turned out games) and the interaction. The interaction can be very frustrating sometimes (grabby rude idiots) but when it rocks it really rocks.

To be fair I've never had a LAN set up with house mates around to play with so that may well be just as entertaining with regard to the interaction with other players

For a young person on a limited allowance maybe the best way to try would be to ask the family for one of these games as a christmas or birthday present. Do discuss it with your folks first, some parents/guardians won't want children on the internet for long periods, aren't comfortable with credit card spending online, have concerns about the addictiveness of these games or some other issues

[Treesh]

To be fair I've never had a LAN set up with house mates around to play with so that may well be just as entertaining with regard to the interaction with other players
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LANs are actually more entertaining than other multiplayer games, unless you use something like teamspeak, and even then, LANs can win out.

GG and I also buy the one to two games per year and that's about it. However, the games that we do actually buy, we play for years and years usually. If it's good enough to buy, it's good enough to play the hell out of it for as long as possible. ;)

[Baajikiil]

In fact, I pay nothing for my ROMs and am therefore infinity times more cost effective than anyone else in this thread and you all therefore make me sick with your tremendously gluttonous spending habits. :blush: Or something like that :)

Hey, just remember to delete those roms within 24 hours of downloading ;)

Actually, a large portion of my backlog of games is caught up in roms. My biggest problem is the games that were never released in the US, and need to be fan translated. Argh, if I have to wait another 6 years before the fan translators(whom I greatly appreciate) finish Der Langrisser, I'm just going to have to learn Japanese myself.

As for another inexpensive route to gaming, check out The Home of the Underdogs. They have older games which are licensed by dead companies available for download. Most of them include instructions or addons to help them work in modern windows environments. This is quasi legal; they will remove any game from their download list if asked officially, but the companies either no longer care, or no longer exist.

EDIT: Wow, I just checked the release date on Der Langrisser, and I've been waiting 10 years for the translation to be finished, not 6. It was started soon after it was known that there would not be an official translation. Time flies when you're having fun I guess.

[SetBuilder]

If you enjoy the game, would you pay to keep enjoying it?  Fallout 2 might be a great find for you, and I still go back to Planescape: Torment more often than any other game probably, but that doesn't preclude me from enjoying other newer games.
:angry: Another person is calling me some money waster.  The only thing people here know I paid for recently is WoW, but I'm the worst person with money ever according to this board!
Then we're at the point -> If you're only gonna play an hour, don't pay for it.  I happen to play a lot, so my investment is quite worth it.
Oh please, compare in the same genre at least.  No genre looks as good as the FPS genre.  And yet you're talking about Fallout 2 in the same post.  What do you want?  Old, cheap, and not highly-graphical, or brand spanking new and shiny?
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1. No, I would not pay a monthly fee, no matter how much I enjoy it, as I enjoy other games that don't require the fee equally as much, yet don't have to continue paying. Old, new, there are a LOT of games to play, and only the select few require monthly fees. What makes those few better than all the others? I have older games that are so incredibly much more playable (going all the way back to text-based). I have newer games equally as playable, that look better, in different genres as well as the same genres (spellforce beats WoW by my opinion, in looks as well as the variety of what you run into in the game, yet runs modified version of same engine).

2. Calm down. I said absolutely nothing about your usage of money. I do know that for me, it would not be worth it, that if I were to spend my money that way, I would be wasting it. If it works for you, and you enjoy the game, by all means continue! I'm not judging your play, I'm simply explaining why I do not like the games enough to pay to play.

3. Actually, there are some things I only do an hour a day, or an hour a month even, that I would be more than willing to pay for. Like cable internet for one. Again, the reason I can't justify the cost is the selection I already have would make that cost rather pointless.

4. I want everything. I want playable, I want beautiful, I want the best storylines, I simply want it all. You can't get it all from one game though. And Fallout 2 is not cheap, and it's graphics aren't bad, really. They aren't great, but even by today's standards, they really aren't bad. But Fallout 2 blows WoW out of the water in storyline and playability, in my opinion, and I'd be willing to dump a whole lot more time and money into it than the other. Which is why I've bought the game twice, when my first copy got broken.






As a response to what someone else said, no, I am not the exception. I don't know many people who don't play a good game for three years or longer. Look at Diablo 2 as an example. How about Unreal Tournament (the original is still going strong). Counterstrike anyone? Fallout 2 was one of those. The original Diablo? Starwars Galactic Battlegrounds? Warcraft 2? Hoyle Casino?

There's a lot of good good games out there. If I don't think I'll be interested in the game three years from now, I probably won't buy it.




Also, I AM one of the younger folks at this board. I'm only 22. Yet my game, dvd, and cd collections have been going since I was about 5. So try not to hit me with investments vs age too much. :)

[Guest]

Why would you buy DvDs?



If you can answer that you will just be showing that you have no reasoning either way - just a personal preference.

[jahcs]

Why would you buy DvDs?
If you can answer that you will just be showing that you have no reasoning either way - just a personal preference.
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Personal preference to not break laws or support bootleggers and counterfit copy producers? The ability to watch a certain movie when I want, where I want, with the proper equipment?

[Guest]

/em Rolls Eyes.


I meant why would you prefer to spend the money to own a DvD than rather than spend it for many hours in an interactive game.

You interpretation of my question makes no sense at all when you read the second sentence. Not to mention it imples conditions that I didnt even allude to.

[jahcs]

ooooohhhhh.

Silly me, taking posts at face value again. :whistling:

[Guest]

Except thats not what you did. In fact you did the opposite.

He made a post contrasting his buying of DvDs with other people buying MMORP subscriptions.

I in turn responded on the exact same lines.

YOU then inserted additional conditions and attributed them to me.



If you are going to use tricky concepts like "face value" at least least learn what they mean.

[Quark]

Except thats not what you did. In fact you did the opposite.

He made a post contrasting his buying of DvDs with other people buying MMORP subscriptions.

I in turn responded on the exact same lines.

YOU then inserted additional conditions and attributed them to me.
If you are going to use tricky concepts like "face value" at least least learn what they mean.
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Boy are you on a mean streak today. Get up on the wrong side of bed?

Your question "Why would you buy DvDs?" is the exact same question I've been asked before when mentioning that I get all my CDs at Best Buy instead of downloading: "Why would you buy a CD"? We can't read tone of voice over the internet, and it's incredibly easy to read your question that way. If you are unclear about something, you can't blame someone else for reading it another way.

[jahcs]

face value
n.
The value printed or written on the face, as of a bill or bond.
Apparent significance or value: took their compliments at face value.

I took your comments at face value, without much regard for the conversation they were a part of. For that I am sorry. I also appologize for answering a question that was apparently only intended for one recipient, SetBuilder.

I buy DVDs. My reasoning is based on my personal preferences and experiences. I listed a few of my reasons. Nowhere did I suggest you advocate the bootlegging of DVDs or imply you don't agree that having a personal movie library is beneficial.

Now lets sheath our claws and enjoy a virtual Guinness together as we watch water flow under the bridge.
:)

edit: corrected the spelling of Guinness before Occhi had me drawn and quartered.

[Guest]

I dont intend my comments for one reader only. But I do think its fair if other readers look at the context before responding. :)