World of Warcraft

[SithLord]

Tell me that ($14.95 * 11) + $50 [$214.35] is worth playing ONE game for ONE year. 200 bucks is, to put it bluntly, a #$%&load of money to pay for a game.

Depends. If you are the type that finds MMORPG's so addicting that you won't buy any other game that year, it may actually save you money. I find that a lot of people have a hard time finding a good game. So they'll get a game that they *think* is good, play it for a few weeks then get bored with it. By this time, they can't return it. Then, they go out and search for another game. Under these circumstances it is not uncommon to see some poor idiot paying $300+ per year on video games.

Of course, there are non-MMORPG's that will do this as well but are rare. Diablo 2 + Expansion saved me quite a bit of money I figure. That game held out for 2-3 years and I still play it some.

[Quark]

Tell me that ($14.95 * 11) + $50 [$214.35] is worth playing ONE game for ONE year. 200 bucks is, to put it bluntly, a #$%&load of money to pay for a game.

Well, let's see ... $214.35 dollars ... 365 days. Approximating I'm getting less than $.66 per day. So, if you drink one less can of coke a day, you can afford this game (and be healthier).

Of course, you don't want to hear that. Nor do you want to hear that people who complain about monthly fees really have no right to go to a movie theater. Why? In my neighborhood (and many others) the new price to watch a movie is $10.50. That's for approximately 2 hours of entertainment. Let's streach that out to the most Blizzard's game will cost ... $60 bucks. That's then for 12 hours at the movie theaters. Of course, this is only considering that your paying for yourself, and you getting no drinks or snacks. So in the first month of playing WoW (which is the most expensive month!) it would take more than 12 hours to make it more valuable, money-wise, than going to a movie theater. I can get that in 2,3 days.

So for 10% of the possible playing time, I've already made paying for WoW a more viable option than paying to watch a movie. And it becomes loaded after the first month ... you've already bought the game, so now it's $10 for 2 hours vs. $10 for 30 days.

Nevermind that no one's forcing you to pay those monthly fees. Like that game, but not that much? Only play it in the first month. Still not convinced, but want to go back? Do it in segments, going back for one month whenever you feel like it. Being a little smarter with your playing time (if you can't play it for 4 months straight, alternate months with different games instead) will save you alot.


People are always complaining about game prices, monthly fees or not. But the straight simple fact is that, if you enjoy and play the game, it's much more worth it than many other forms of entertainment.

[Drasca]

Vaporware, all promises are illusions made of smoke and mirrors until it comes out and is played.

Everyone seems to be gauging a game value vs price of said game that doesn't exist yet. World of Warcraft, until people start playing and breaking the idiot proof and fool proof seals, is just another game on paper left to speculation. I'm pointing out the obvious but: World of Warcraft is not worth time / money until it is actually played, and proves itself worthy. So, beta is nice... but given the reputation of Blizzard Corporate mentality as of late: beginning of beta means the game is finished and ready for shipping. Any issues may be addressed in future patches, if there's money.

I'd like to see how WoW will really address gameplay with a nest of humans doing everything they can to break gameplay. Dealing with hundreds of squabbling children (of all ages) and the issue of additional content will show whether Blizzard is up to the job. I certainly don't want to go through that uncertainty again--and have everything I've virtually achieved gone to waste. Wait it a year after initial release. Then judge. There may be a certain excitement being the first, but the safe bet is to wait and see if this game sinks or swims-- or simply tanks quickly after release.

[nobbie]

Well, let's see ... $214.35 dollars ... 365 days.  Approximating I'm getting less than $.66 per day.  So, if you drink one less can of coke a day, you can afford this game (and be healthier).

Well, and if I don't drink that Coke plus avoid to play WOW, I'll live even healthier, right? ;)

As said earlier, my concern with all these new cash cows called MMORPG's is that they are just business models to rake in oodles of cash. It's not about "good games" but addictive games that get and keep you hooked. There is no "social aspect" in MMORPG's, that's an illusion. Just look at the poor state of the public Diablo II games in Battle.net. Unless you play in organized games such as clan games or the Amazon Basin games, you can't expect help or friendly behavior from the people you're playing with in most cases. They will instead try to cheat you where they can for their own profit. No public game on this planet, whether it carries the label "MMORPG" or not, will change that because people won't change. So, if you decide to play a costly MMORPG, you should by all means see that you have friends, a clan or "institutions" like the Amazon Basin that you can play with.
PC games in the 1990's made a dream become reality: They brought expensive pay-per-play computer gaming from the gambling houses/casinos and pubs onto your own desktop. You just had to pay 50$ for a good game, install it and enjoy it many hours. Expensive games in gambling houses, where you had to pay 10 cents for a "Flipper", "Pong" or "Shark Attack" game, became a thing of the past. MMORPG producers today are now trying to bring back the formerly expensive gambling house games onto your desktop in the form of pay-per-play MMORPG's and that's a development I don't like, whether the new entertainment will "be worth it", or not.

[channel1]

For the folks worried about using credit cards for paying, I expect that by the time WoW is released the Game Cards will be pretty standard for buying time for inline games. Right now, you can walk in to a Wal-Mart and buy a game card for Disney's Toontown Online.

Blizzard might get greedy with the payment model, and charge for the initial game kit. We'll see. Using Toontown as an example again, Disney charges nothing for the initial game. They give three days free, hopefully to get you hooked. That seems like a pretty good marketing model to me.

Will I buy in to WoW? Not a chance. I've seen enough crappy customer service from Blizzard with D2 to know that I won't get involved with another online game from them. Whenever the enjoyment of the game depends heavily on customer relations, you NEED to have things set up where your customers are treated as honored guests. Disney knows that, probably because of their background with parks and hotels. Blizzard is too used to dealing with snot-nosed cheaters and hackers to have the right attitude to deal with monthly subscribers.

-rcv-

[Bob]

Giving the example of a hgame that hasnt even been released is NOT evidense that your business modle is viable - get a clue.

Basically, you say that the people running this other game have pulled numbers out of the air? I tihnk not. As the FAQ says, they've worked on the Business model, and hvae found it a viable proposition to run it without charging a monthly fee. Whether it works in practice could be different, but that largely depends on them, not the business model (if they make a good enough game to get good cash for advertising on it, etc.)

But it takes a lot of money to run one of these games.

lest ye forget: they get a lot of money for these games

Sales for D2 & War3 are pretty high. Now, somewhere in that cash they can find the money to run Realm-run Diablo2, Diablo2:LoD, War3, War3:TFT. Oh, and Starcraft, War2:BNE & D1 (yes, those brought in cash of their own, but not any more - they could pay for themselves then, but are leaching from D2 & War3 ATM). Blizz have also released 15 patches for War3, 10 patches for D2, 10 patches for SC, 9 patches for D1 and I don't know how many for War2. That's a lot of after-sales support.

They can afford all of that, running realm-based games that run into the thouands of games every day, 4 servers, loadsa patches. All from the sale price of these games - Without a single bit of non-Blizz advertising on Bnet. Yes, there's a few adverts on the website, but nothing on Bnet itself.

Now, if Blizz can make just 1 million sales in the first year, they'll get at least $20 million (assuming that Blizz makes 40% profit on every sale price). So it'll cost more than $1.5million per month to run servers and support? and that's without extra cash that they could get from selling advertising space... Later on, are they going to continue to support it so much? they have a poor record past the first year or so. Are people going to get bored and stop playing? most likely - so that'll cost less to run then. And by then, it could be leaching from other games.

And I almost forgot, based on what that other guy said - yes he was deluded. He actually thought his ability to run a server for 12 people playing a game had a relation to the running a MMORP.

er... assuming that his maths was correct;
$250 to run a server for 12 for 6 months. $500 per year. or $42 per person per year. Now, I'd have thought that the cost of running the server per person would have gone down as the ammount of people suing it goes up, something to do with economies of scale. So you're telling me that it costs $150 per person, per year to run support, patching & file servers? when the cost of bandwidth and servers over the year is $42...
I think you are mistaken about who is dillusional.


I've already shown that $50 per person is enough to run the current battle.net, with other games leaching for at least a year. You think that they couldn't run a dedicated service with some advertising liberally spread about for the same cost?

Perhaps it's less that they want to pay to run the new online service and more that they need cash to support D2 & War3 realms, which they won't be able to get from leaching off the profits from a new regular Bnet game, because THEY HAVEN'T GOT ONE IN DEVELOPMENT, and have poured so much into WoW.
As a stand alone game, with some advertising, WoW should be able to pay for itself from sales - The probelm is that Blizz has gone and made itself some other costly commitments (d2 & War3) which it now needs to pay for. Since they games aren't selling many now and can't keep supporting themselves and SC, War2 & D1 indefinately.

Blizz needs a cash injection, and believes that people would rather pay to play a game, than have a free, ad-splattered realm.

Take for instance DAOC, they always have one or 2 Developer teams just working on the live server and on free exspansions

er... they spend all the money on making expansions and then release them free? that is their problem. They could release an expansion giving access to a new area, and patch the game so that people without can still see items that someone gets from these areas, and can still see where they are without their game falling over. People will buy these (becaue people always want the latest thing), and that would keep a system working.

You have no idea if its possible and you know it

I doubt that you have any idea that it's not possible either. You've most likely either looked at all the things they need (servers, connections, support, development teams) looked at the cost of the game, and said there's no way they could fit all that into that cost, they'd have to charge a fee or it wouldn't work. Or you've listened to someone who's said that and followed them.

-Bob

[Guest]

Take it to email.

-Bolty

[Bolty]

Or to throw more fuel on the fire...

If, after the beta's running and we like what we see, are there people here who would want to admin a WoW section of the Lounge?

-Bolty

[Guest]

Most of your original problems with MMORPs were reasonable positions.


Then you started talking out of your butt about aspectss of MMORPs which you have no or almost exsperience.

They are social, games. And your using D2 as an example just shows how little you know about it.

In most MMORPs there is a built in clan or guild structure, unlike D2 they actually encourage you to make friends and get to know people. Of course many people come into them with pre-existing groups also.
One of the most notable features about MMORPs is that many tend to function as both a chat room and game, depending on what you feel like doing that day.


Of course I am not implying at all that you would enjoy playing a MMORP - Im just pointing out that your knowledgr of the games beyong bussiness model seems to be about nil.

[Artega]

I'd certainly be interested in such a position, but not for the Beta - my current rig can barely run D2, much less something as bandwidth- and graphics-intensive as WoW. Perhaps I'll have a new rig by time WoW goes gold :)

[Roland]

As long as I have the time. :)

[Wiccan]

Well i think WoW is going to have trouble, if it ever comes out due to there money problems and lack of good programs jumping ship to form there own company......

I myself have been playing Final Fantasy X1 and i have to say its a good game i been playing free for 30 days gig and i already have a credit card ready for it only thing it is pricey 12.95 month 1.00 for additonal characters and its big world and you have all the classes.

[Chaerophon]

Then you started talking out of your butt

You're an ill-mannered prick. Get off of your high horse, rent a spellchecker, and next time you post (and I hope that it's not for a while yet), try to behave with a modicum of couth. Nobody here has attacked you; least of all Nobbie.

[Thecla]

I'm definitely anticipating WoW, but I have somewhat mixed feelings about it. Blizzard won't reinvent the genre (WC2 and D1 were revolutionary games IMO, but and since then Bliz has done evolution not revolution) but I'm sure they will implement it better than anyone else has, Sony/Verant included e.g.: easy game play (very positive, not a drawback); a simple interface and a good learning curve; the feasibility of solo play; no need to invest hours or days to get something done; no need for 20 hrs of rat killing/ore mining just to start your character; great art (I like how WoW looks, and I'm sure it will be system friendly too). A monthly fee doesn't bother me at all, and I bet Bliz's fee will be very reasonable compared with the going rate.

On the other side, although multiplayer aspects add immeasurably to any game, being forced to play with other people (L'enfer c'est les autres, en ligne especillay) is not necessarily a good thing, and the general Blizzard demographics may turn out to be much worse than that of many other MMORPGs. After D2, I have no confidence in Bliz's ability to really monitor and enforce legitimate play (the current rune dupes and soj d-clone sells being only the most recent example of a long, bleak, and depressing history of abject failure on their part).

[whyBish]

If, after the beta's running and we like what we see, are there people here who would want to admin a WoW section of the Lounge?

I bags the nightshift ;)

[whyBish]

Nor do you want to hear that people who complain about monthly fees really have no right to go to a movie theater.  Why?

...

So for 10% of the possible playing time, I've already made paying for WoW a more viable option than paying to watch a movie.  And it becomes loaded after the first month ... you've already bought the game, so now it's $10 for 2 hours vs. $10 for 30 days.

Have you heard of an economics concept called utility?

[whyBish]

That being said, saying that you won't pay $9.95 a month for a game is ridiculous.  Unless you have played it already and didn't like it, how can you say it isn't worth $9.95 a month?

You wait for reviews/peer comment/ surf the tech support forums etc?

I am unlikely to buy the game. I am not against paying for using servers in principle (and actually agree with Ghostiger here), but I am against them in current practice.

I don't need to list the negative points of pay-to-play other than those that haven't yet been listed here, which are more of a concern to non-US/(Korea?) based players:
1) Servers will probably not be on the same continent. (There is no Australian/New Zealand server for any MMORPG games I know of, but that is few ;) ) This may/will affect:
1a) Ping (responsivity)
1b) Timezone (most players are not on during your waking hours)
1c) Language (players may speak different languages on the same server)
2) Added costs of purchasing playing time. If there is the need to pay in foreign currency then the cost is essentially doubled. If it is through instore cards (like mobile phone topups for example) then there is still likely to be exchange rate issues to deal with)

Furthermore, if Blizz is generous and has a staff of four or so ppl looking after it, and it gets about the same traddic as D2 that's about 240k ppl to 4 support staff. and they will likely not be on during non-U.S. hours. (No idea if the G.M. or Mod or Tech Support type concept is being used in WoW, but is used in other MMORPGS)

[Yuen]

My view is very similar to Thecla's view. My reasons for anticipating the game are much like his.

My main concerns with World of Warcraft are (given Blizzards history) - (1) (like Thecla) security and enforcement of legitimate play, and (2) adequate tuning of the high level game.

(1) In regards to security and stopping of exploits/dupes - That is why I hope I am paying my monthly fee.
D2 contained a free battle net service. They said they would try their best to make D2 secure - and it is quite obvious now what (their best efforts) + (no ongoing funds) = ($hit house security).
Now EverQuest has a monthly fee and it is clear that (their best efforst) + (monthly fee) = (quite good security)... a number of holes but orders of magnitude better than D2.
Now comparing Sony/Verant to Blizzard as a gaming company I know who I like better. I would hope that Blizzard at least has the same security as EQ does if not better.

(2) Tuning of the high level game. In D2 Blizzard thought (before release) that Hell difficulty was impossible to do solo. Someone then finished it before D2 even got released in Australia. In D2 Blizzard missed many overpowered combinations. Err... Whirlwind + leech? Seriously how the hell do you miss that?
So why do i have a modicum of faith for WoW? Well MMORPG character classes are usually a lot simpler than D2's. Also Blizzard have a number of people on their team that have large amounts of experience with the high end game of EQ, since WoW is an evolution of EQ one would expect they could tune the high end game better than D2.
Tigole, ex-GuildLeader of Legacy of Steel, uberguild of the Nameless server of EverQuest, is now lead quest designer and plays a large part in the design of WoW. This is a large selling point to me.
That is why despite their shocking record of game tuning/balancing with D2 I have moderate faith in their abilities for WoW.

-----------------

As for the whole debate about cost. I think comparing D2 which has no monthly fee to WoW which has a monthly fee is comparing 2 completely different genres. D2 while in the most literal sense is a Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game, it is not what people mean when they say MMORPG. A much better phrase is Persistant Online World. Meaining D2 is not persistant and WoW is.
Now D2 (quests in Hell Difficulty) was finished in under a weeks time. People then began to do the same things over and over again with different characters. It also had security problems + dupes/exploits galore. For this you paid zero dollars.
If all WoW quests were finished in a week, and there was the security level of D2, and I was paying a monthly fee I would scream bloody murder.
What I am paying my monthly fee for (apart from servers and bandwith) is - if I play as a casual gamer I will never reach the end of WoW, because by the time I do, the 'WoW live team' will have created more end game zones and more quests. And because when someone invariably finds a dupe/exploit the 'WoW live team' will stop it before it becomes common enough to wreck the economy of the game world.
There is a huge difference between my expectations of D2 and its free service, and WoW and its monthly fee service, and *that* is why I will pay the monthly fee.

There is no way Blizzard can make a popular, secure, free internet game. They cannot have that combination. They already tried and failed. Now I am not willing to compromise on security. I am also not willing to compromise on popular (because if it was unpopular that means it would be boring). So the only variable left to change is paying a fee.

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In regards to some people's views of MMORPGs being the 'hard drugs' of the gaming world. I have to agree. There is a greater chance for the correct personality type being addicted to a MMORPG. The game then ceases to become fun - it becomes an addiction, almost a job.
I stopped playing EQ because of this.
When World of WarCraft begins to feel the same way I will also stop playing. But I hope this will be after solid months (possibly years) of fun gaming. How will they achieve this?
EQ players 'grind' and 'camp'. They hunt in a predetermined 'good' location and kill monsters for the fastest exp gain. They sit around a spot they know where a unique monster will spawn and wait hours for him then kill him so they have a hope of getting his special loot.
The reason they do this is because they want to be max level and have the best items. This is addiction making them play rather than fun.
How will WoW break this? Instead of grinding for levels. you will quest for them instead. Questing will force you to visit scenic and exotic new areas, force you to encounter fantastic and awe inspiring monsters, it will force you to follow a story line rather than think about how fast you are gaining exp. Now that to me is fun. That to me would be playing for fun rather than playing because you are addicted.

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I guess I'm a World of Warcraft Fanboy (though I don't think i'm a completely deluded one). I'm certainly not a Blizzard fanboy.
WoW is going to have lots of bad points. Here is why despite this I still have faith:

The FPS genre is polished. It is hard for innovation to occur. You have to reinvent the genre to sell a new game now. (Eg Doom3 and its attempt to be a horror movie)
The RTS genre is polished. It is hard for innovation to occur. You have to have a cool new feature to sell a new game now.
The Street Fighter genre is polished. Ditto.

The MMORPG genre is NOT polished. The games out there are full of basic level design flaws.

World of Warcraft to me is like an average game being released amongst a sea of crude, rough, unpolished game.
WoW is going to have many flaws. However it is going to me more polished (scrubbed to a medium sheen) than any current MMORPG. And this is in a fledgling genre that sorely needs to be polished. Not reinvented like the geriatric genres of FPS, RTS and Fighting Games.

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This post rambled. I apologise.

[Selby]

You wait for reviews/peer comment/ surf the tech support forums etc?

I am unlikely to buy the game.  I am not against paying for using servers in principle (and actually agree with Ghostiger here), but I am against them in current practice.

Which is a perfectly valid argument. You are saying that the game and company aren't concerned with your market and as such you aren't going to pay to play a sub-par version of the game.

My point was to respond to the people who are sitting there saying that since D2 is free to play there is no reason to ever pay-to-play since it's stupid. That's a shallow and ignorant point of view. Saying that none of the games out there are something you would want to pay for because they aren't in your interest (Anarchy Online, Star Wars Galaxies, etc) is fine. But to sit there and compare a single player game with multiplayer added to a massive social structure gaming world and then insist they are the same and that we shouldn't have to pay for it is foolish.

MMORPGs do make money. Some make them hand over fist. But how many out there are from small companies? Most are bankrolled by big corporations with lots of money willing to wait for a return on investment. It takes ALOT of money to start one. Maintaining it isn't too bad compared to startup costs, but you need quite a few millions to get one rolling. Bandwidth and servers are expensive.

And Bob, sitting there saying that a free "MMOG" that hasn't been released is perfectly valid because it has a good business plan is rather naive. How many dotcommers claimed to have great business plans to make money? How many failed? A business plan can look great on paper, but until everything is tried in the real world it is no more than an idea. I personally don't see how they plan on keeping it free and hosting servers for all their players without it being nothing more than a hobbyist\enthusiast keeping it alive. Hardly a business plan.

[NiteFox]

Depressingly, $0.66 is a helluva lot cheaper than a can of Coke is in the UK...

I've always looked upon MMORPGs with a feigned interest, as I have done with all fads.

That's right, it's a fad. Granted, the format may be economically viable from the standpoint of the company, and many thousands of players may be entertained by a MMORPG for the same amount of time as any epic game (What's Diablo's age now? Six or so years?) but eventually players will tire of the format. "No thanks, we've seen enough" and then the servers get pulled.

After all, Blizzard may consider keeping Bnet support for the original Diablo, even though the number of games going on at any given time has dropped from tens of thousands to a few hundred, but this is because they're running off the same tech as WC2BNE and SC (Both still popular games), and it's hardly like they can get any more blood out of our soulstones, so to speak.

Do you think that any company will continue to support a MMORPG after the bubble has burst when the number of active clients has dropped to a few hundred? Will they pull the plug then, or wait until the number drops to a few dozen? Nah. When that point has reached the cost of running the servers will be greater than the sweet, delicious cash they're raking in, and anyway the "illusion" of a MMORPG will essentially be shattered when you no longer have thousands and thousands of players interacting with the game world.

By then, we would have moved onto new things. Maybe Massively Multiplayer Online Sports Simulations, with each paying customer responsible for their own soccer/football/rugby/basketball/baseball/cricket team playing against the teams of other players, that would be a larf. Or, hell, maybe a return to good old-fashioned single-player experiences? I'd like that.

So what good is your 6GB install of FFXI (Incidentally, the only MMORPG I would consider playing, given the opportunity) gonna be then? Can you play it? Nope. Can you sell it on eBay? As a collector's item, yes, but not as a game. Everyone has pretty much sketched out what you can get out of a MMORPG in the short term, but not in the long term, and in the long term it all amounts to nothing.

Financially speaking, I have this: UK prices for a MMORPG (If you're lucky enough to find one with decent UK support) are as follows: £40 for the game, £10 per month fee. Assuming that you pay for and play a game for three years you would have spent £520 on a single game in that period.

To me, that much equals:
- 17 GBA games OR
- 13 GameCube games OR
- 104(!) Budget PC games OR
- 43 CDs OR
- 1405 cans of Coke.

Actually, let's take the trade price of a can of Coke (About 30p, rather than the 37p they sell at). That amounts to 1733 cans of Coke that I can sell for £641.21, a massive profit. Actually, I'll think I'll start a store with that outlay :)

But ultimately there is one thing Blizzard neglected. Had they changed "War" into "Star" then that would have certainly piqued my interest.