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[TMTCC]

It looks like due to some stiff competition from WoW and EQ2, the people at Square Enix are having their own little campaign to bring back some old players. From April 14th till July 13th, you can bring back your character for free AND get 1 month of playing time for free as well

Click Here for more!

 

[beany323]

they tried that what last month? it had restrictions or something that made it way to dang hard...

goodluck.

 

[gshock888]

i'll play it if no monthly fee. why do they force MMORPG players to pay their hard earned cash every month, wasn't the initial investment enough??? I know they need to keep the servers alive and all but a free MMORPG would be able to sustain itself on just the sales.

or at least make it cheaper!

 

[buzzsaw13]

I tried signing up on the 14th but it kept saying my ID was invalid

 

[Shaorinor]

Originally posted by: gshock888
i'll play it if no monthly fee. why do they force MMORPG players to pay their hard earned cash every month, wasn't the initial investment enough??? I know they need to keep the servers alive and all but a free MMORPG would be able to sustain itself on just the sales.

or at least make it cheaper!

Doubt it. They could charge cheaper monthly and still maintain servers, but relying on initial sales alone will not maintain servers, bandwidth, employees (i.e. game masters), webmasters, etc.

 

[gshock888]

what about Battle.net Diablo 2? that was free. ok it's not as intense as your current MMORPG but still..

sorry for the OT but is that game Guild Wars for free or is it another lame PR bullcrap attempt

 

[Rufio]

if you don't want to pay montly fees then just don't play them. easy.

 

[tallest1]

too bad I sold my account for good money 6 months ago

 

[Zugzwang152]

from their site:

link

Character(s) deleted more than 3 months ago will not be covered by this service.

seeing as I stopped playing around the start of March 2004, I will unfortunately not be able to take advantage of this.


<- retired level 49/24 WHM/BLM on Ramuh. Nov. 2003 - Feb. 2004.

 

[TekDemon]

Originally posted by: gshock888
i'll play it if no monthly fee. why do they force MMORPG players to pay their hard earned cash every month, wasn't the initial investment enough??? I know they need to keep the servers alive and all but a free MMORPG would be able to sustain itself on just the sales.

or at least make it cheaper!

That's how I thought until I actually played WoW...the sheer scale of the game requires serious upkeep. So...I pay, lol.
Plus it once and for all prevents piracy...smart on their part anyways.

 

[tw1164]

Originally posted by: TekDemon

Originally posted by: gshock888
i'll play it if no monthly fee. why do they force MMORPG players to pay their hard earned cash every month, wasn't the initial investment enough??? I know they need to keep the servers alive and all but a free MMORPG would be able to sustain itself on just the sales.

or at least make it cheaper!

That's how I thought until I actually played WoW...the sheer scale of the game requires serious upkeep. So...I pay, lol.
Plus it once and for all prevents piracy...smart on their part anyways.

I don't play WoW (I play Coh), and I have to say that I'll gladly pay a monthly fee. The Coh Devs come out w/ new stuff all the time, plus they haven't charged for the expansions (yet).

 

[dabuddha]

Originally posted by: gshock888
what about Battle.net Diablo 2? that was free. ok it's not as intense as your current MMORPG but still..

sorry for the OT but is that game Guild Wars for free or is it another lame PR bullcrap attempt

Yep. They still have hundreds of thousands of players playing day and night on battle.net.

 

[Lithan]

$15 is absurd. Dont fool yourselves. These guys are making HUGE profit margins. I played EQ for a couple years and I think I saw a paid employee on a whole THREE times. And twice were during holiday events. Also, there was a CONSTANT lag problem. Servers typically had 2-4x the load they were designed to have. And I can't imagine they would Design and plan for server loads that wouldn't be profitable for them... so you are looking at ~50-75% pure profit on top of what they had planned to make.

Why do you think everyone and their mother is making a MMORPG? Because it's a money-trough.

 

[eggrole1]

Yeah the MMO fees are a little high, but i think with more competition they might come down. That isn't to say you'll see free MMOs with good content additions anytime soon, the cost to keep something like EQ2 or WoW running is absolutely absurd. I happily paid for EQ1 for MANY years, and am paying for WoW now (even though I haven;t logged in for months). The games just provide so much enjoyment for the cost you just can;t really complain.

Compare 15USD a month to anything else you do for fun that cost money. Go to ONE movie, get half a tank of gas worth of travel, buy a DVD... 15USD doesn;t go far these days, and with being able to play almost as much as you want (barring downtime/patches) you can then see how good a deal it really is.

 

[gozulin]

You and me both.

 

[Marthisdil]

Originally posted by: gshock888
i'll play it if no monthly fee. why do they force MMORPG players to pay their hard earned cash every month, wasn't the initial investment enough??? I know they need to keep the servers alive and all but a free MMORPG would be able to sustain itself on just the sales.

or at least make it cheaper!

An MMORPG that would have to generate the funds to pay for servers, bandwidth, ongoing bugfixes and content addons, would be so expensive up front, no one would buy it.

Let us know when YOU write one that's good (on par with EQ, WoW, etc), and free, and we'll check it out.

 

[imported_OrSin]

Battle.net is matching services. They have no contect and the bandwith and server usage on them is almost nothing comparied to most MMORPG.

I do think most MM over charge, but they have to to get thier money back the first year.
Beleive me i know someone that works at the places and they all loss money the first year. The second they make a small profit and 3rd year is 80% profit. That assumes they release no x-pak. So they factor in the fact that no one will be playing after the 3rd year. Most companies need the xpak just to stay liquid.

Remember CoH employee over 100 people for over 6 months before the game was even sold. Add in server buidls and bandwith testing for the betas. Its pretty penny to get one of these things started.

 

[Marthisdil]

Originally posted by: dabuddha

Originally posted by: gshock888
what about Battle.net Diablo 2? that was free. ok it's not as intense as your current MMORPG but still..

sorry for the OT but is that game Guild Wars for free or is it another lame PR bullcrap attempt

Yep. They still have hundreds of thousands of players playing day and night on battle.net.

There's a huge difference in scale. Battle.net doesn't have thousands of players, all at once, on a given server, with the vast areas, content, instances, that games like EQ, WoW, etc have. You have a few people at a time, in an "instance" of sorts - basically connectivity they play via tcp/ip. There's no interaction with the environment, there's nothing beyond killing stuff and collecting items. So it's 100% different than the MMORPGs.

 

[peruytu]

I'm a hardcore gamer... but I love my money more than I love games.
Although, I would gladly play these types of games if they only charged $4.99 per month.

 

[davechri]

I played EQ for many years and didn't mind paying the monthly fees. But it seems like from a business perspective they get more long-term players if they made the cost of the software was much less. Get people playing and liking it and they'll keep paying.

 

[DongTran]

Too bad I cannot afford to play this past the first month

Also, I don't have the time either. It takes like 4 hours just to get Jeuno from any of the major towns!

 

[jfunk]

Diablo2 runs on your computer, not on their servers. That is why there is no fee. Battlenet has absolutely nothing to do with how MMO games work.

They need monthly fees to pay for servers, bandwidth, and staff. The game development doesn't stop when it is shipped, like a normal game. How much they need to charge of course is up to debate, but it is absolutely a requirement.



j

 

[EpOxY]

what they should do...

is charge a respawn fee. that way, the good players play for cheap... and the bad players, well... they pay for everything else.

 

[eggrole1]

Originally posted by: davechri
But it seems like from a business perspective they get more long-term players if they made the cost of the software was much less. Get people playing and liking it and they'll keep paying.

Excellent logic, I wish more companies thought this way. Would have saved me hundreds of dollars buying games (MMOs) that I only played for a month or 2. I would try all the new ones if I got a month free and the initial outlay on software was like 10USD, not 50USD.

 

[stockjock]

I love FFXI and I think its worth every penny I spend every month. The entertainment value is outstanding IMHO. I have never played a MMORPG before this one...and to tell you the truth, never thought I would ever play one...but, man these things are addicting.