Is GW2 the new business model for MMO's?
Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster
![](http://www.siglaunch.com/sigs/any/1/7/9/9/2/4917992DeAqj.png)
"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."
![Frown](images/smilies/frown.gif)
GW2 WILL become heavy on the micro transaction side. For now it's just cosmetic stuff, but expect PayToWin potions in the market eventually.
|
Two words: Mistfire (F@#$%ing) Wolf. And if you're unaware, those stats are pretty damn good.
Click here to find all the All Things Art Threads!
I must bitterly point out this is already the case.
Two words: Mistfire (F@#$%ing) Wolf. And if you're unaware, those stats are pretty damn good. |
And really, I'll pass on a 30 second DPS pet elite that I have to pay money for, considering the better pets and awesome support/form powers the professions already get naturally. The only reason I even considered it was for looks.
Thought for the day:
"Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."
=][=
Lifetime LOTRO subber and founder here, just so I'm not misunderstood as not knowing enough. I still PvP there.
|
Just an idle thought.
In COH you could level all the way up, and play the entire vanilla game, without having to buy anything. |
GW the first one was the same way, grant it crappy as hell but got them to make another one.
Never play another NcSoft game, If you feel pride for our game, then it as well, I Superratz am Proud of all of you Coh people, Love, Friendship will last for a lifetime.
Global:@Greenflame Ratz
Main Toons:Super Ratz, Burning B Radical, Green Flame Avenger, Tunnel Ratz, Alex Magnus
Life goes in cycles and fads. I'm convinced that the 'free to play' MMO style will be a fad, and someday popular games will cycle around to other ways of paying the bills.
The next big fad might be in-game advertising, or megacorporation sponsorship, or crowd-sourced creative commons development, or something entirely new. It's possible that the subscription-based game might come back. (It still works in EVE and Second Life; future games might emulate those in order to follow their model.)
I don't know what the next step in the cycle will be. But F2P is just one step of the evolution of multiplayer games, and in ten years or so the industry will cycle around to something new or a remake of the old ways. That's how it always works with human beings and the things they build.
...
New Webcomic -- Genocide Man
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
Nobody has any idea about whether GW2 didn't meet an internal release date, but we do know whether it shipped in time: it did. They announced one date, and they met that date. Anything beyond that is pure conjecture.
|
They've been quite responsive about fixing bugs and making balance tweaks as the game is hammered by a massive non-beta testing audience for the first time. |
We can't take GW1's track record as evidence of the capabilities of speed to expand GW2.
A huge part of the success of GW1 was that each expansion (but the last one) was a full stand-alone experience that was as complete as the original game itself. GW2 is much more ambitious than the original GW, and I think it's nearly unrealistic to expect a GW expansion next year that is as large as the base GW2 game is.
During GW1's lifetime, the closest thing to a "pay to win" option that they ever added were Mercenary Hero Slots... |
GW2 will likely be doing this in the same way GW1 did - by bundling the expansions together into a basic box price item for people who come to the game later |
I've often wondered if people look at F2P models differently depending on whether or not they were subscribed beforehand. I only came to LOTRO after F2P came in so and I've no complaints - though I see a ton of criticism of it from long term players on their forums - whereas as a former subscriber to CoH before F2P I find the CoH model lacking.
Just an idle thought. |
True, but as even the most ardent CoH fan will likely admit, the vanilla game is the weakest part of it - a lot of the old zones are still rather clunky, especially blueside, and basically all of what I'd call the 'modernised' parts of the game - Praetoria, SSAs, the alignment system, IOs and Incarnates - are VIP and/or cash shop only.
|
However, I would not play without IOs, that's for sure. But a new player doesn't know the difference, and DOs/SOs worked for me for years, before I knew the difference.
The Incarnate system was anathema to me in every way. Putting WoW's grindy old raiding end-game in COH is what made me drop to Premium. It was the only thing I couldn't access, and I hated it. I thought it ruined the game.
I think by now it's clear that exec wanted the game out in 2011. It does not matter if the dev team says it wont be ready until Sep 2012, the guys up top set the deadlines and GameStop had to announce a quarter delay on the game (they dont speculate this stuff, usually when GameStop makes plan for preorders and floor shelf space, its because they were given a date.)
|
We can't take GW1's track record as evidence of the capabilities of speed to expand GW2.
A huge part of the success of GW1 was that each expansion (but the last one) was a full stand-alone experience that was as complete as the original game itself. GW2 is much more ambitious than the original GW, and I think it's nearly unrealistic to expect a GW expansion next year that is as large as the base GW2 game is. <snip> Again you look at the past. This is not going to be entirely up to ArenaNet, this will be dictated by NCSoft. Eventually, they will be demanded to do so. It's the road the company has been taking with their games in the last year and they will likely keep pushing further that path. Would not be shocked to see more pay-to-win things added to GW1 in the next 2 years, btw. <snip> First we need to see at least 3 years of consecutive expansions being released without delays. |
But hey, if you want to totally ignore the past behavior of the company and think there's no point in discussing this until we see 3 years of consecutive expansions, or whether GW1 will see pay-to-win things added to GW1 in the next two years (and again, any pay-to-win, not MORE, because Merc slots are hardly pay-to-win), then that's cool. We can just end this discussion here and pick it back up in three years, because without any past info to work from, you're just engaging in baseless speculation.
Sorry, I'm a wee bit bitter about that game.
But yeah, it took a whole gaming guild of 50+ people, gaming together for 2+ years in a very tight-knit community, most of whom are rabid fans of both Star Wars and MMOs, and within 2 months most of them could not bear to log into it because it was just bad. And these are some people who were ready and willing to completely overlook the warts and love that game. The co-op story mode was fine and fun. I would have paid for a single-player or co-op version. But the actual gameplay was little more than WoW-with-lightsabers, and the content had zero depth of play. Most of the systems were awful and balky (don't get me started on token drops, the UI, or the awful auctionhouse interface, gah) and it really seemed like they blew their whole wad on the story and forgot to develop the actual game to support it. |
While there's the occasional teaming and the market, I'm largely playing it as a solo game and loving it. I loved KotOR, and see this as a great sequel, and it has everything that Bioware has done well in solo games (except I really want more than 3 dialogue options). That probably reinforces your point that when I run out of new story, the shine will fall off, but it'll go F2P about then and I won't have to pay more, which will be nice...
But, outside Bioware's established space I can say I see that it is limited in the grindy/grindy space
And customization is somewhat limited. Adequate ranges of customization for a solo game don't hold up well when everyone runs by looking like you do... CoH has definitely spoiled me in that respect.
Yeah, I'd say Bioware had an opportunity to redefine the MMO space the same way they did the solo story games, and missed the boat.
(In a perfect world, full Bioware story telling ability techniques with CoH customization and loot/market model running in a nice pretty enivonrment/model engine like the Secret World's.)
Um, okay. You can't just say "we have to ignore all of the past seven years of ANet's behavior in managing their game, but we'll look at the past year of NCSoft's corporate influence over a variety of games that their management ostensibly oversees in different capacities from game to game".
|
Also, you cant look at the past on business desissions when the current model business for the company has drastically changed since then.
Especially since ArenaNet has, in the past, had a fairly independent relationship with their publisher, as they've said in several interviews. |
This is an especially suspicious request since you only want to consider past behavior that you feel supports your argument. |
True, but as even the most ardent CoH fan will likely admit, the vanilla game is the weakest part of it - a lot of the old zones are still rather clunky, especially blueside, and basically all of what I'd call the 'modernised' parts of the game - Praetoria, SSAs, the alignment system, IOs and Incarnates - are VIP and/or cash shop only.
|
As for the Guild Wars model? Eh, if it works, why not? I get to pay less, generally speaking, so why would I refuse? I just have my doubts on how it even works.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
As for the Guild Wars model? Eh, if it works, why not? I get to pay less, generally speaking, so why would I refuse? I just have my doubts on how it even works.
|
The only thing that might throw a wrench in it is NCSoft, but you know, GW2 is doing really well. NCSoft has yet to strangle a cash cow.
To be clear: short term past behavior (since the present is the past by the time it hits our brain.) Look at the mothership. Look what it is doing currently with all its IPs. Don't use references from what they did 5 years ago. Think 1 year ago tops.
|
GW2 has been an NCSoft game for its entire 5 year development cycle, including the past year. They were committed to having an in game store without pay-to-win items that entire time, including in the past year. They have launched the game while under NCSoft's watchful eye and released the gem store's basic stock, IIRC, weeks before pre-purchases began, well before they knew what sort of monetary return they would get on their investment. The gem store has not included any pay-to-win items to date, in spite of it being an NCSoft title in active development of everything - including the initial content of said store - for the entirety of the past year.
So. Going by the past year, I guess we have no reason to worry about them adding pay-to-win items! That does make it a lot easier to end this debate, you're right.
The Incarnate system was anathema to me in every way. Putting WoW's grindy old raiding end-game in COH is what made me drop to Premium. It was the only thing I couldn't access, and I hated it. I thought it ruined the game.
|
The annoying thing is, coming back now and looking at what's been added to the game since Freedom, it feels like the devs have (had?) got to the point where the Incarnate system was fitting in with the rest of the ongoing development rather than overshadowing it. Personally, I'm a lot happier with the direction the game is going in now compared to a year or two ago, or would be if it wasn't for... y'know... the whole shutdown thing.
It's a good model, and may well be the way forward, even for top-tier titles (if GW2 is any indication). GW1 has worked out well, with an up front cost and then only very large, campaign-level updates requiring purchase (other updates are free, and download from the patcher like a subscription game). The cash shop stuff is pretty much just utility and vanity items.
"And in this moment, I will not run.
It is my place to stand.
We few shall carry hope
Within our bloodied hands."