Spoiler:
Haravikk wrote:I don't think anyone really expects to get free major DLC from The Elder Scrolls online; this is where pay once is a decent compromise, as you're essentially paying for the game and subsequent DLC like you would with any regular Elder Scrolls title. Since they would only make money from initial sales, they would be encouraged to come out with high quality DLC regularly, and covering as wide a range of content as they can to ensure that people at least buy some of it.The Tom wrote:Yes, Skyrim gets DLC but you have to pay for that, don't you?
For players the difference will be wether you would pay more on the subscription, or by only buying DLC you want to play. And I think it's why a smart company should offer both; either pay once for the game, then once for each DLC you want, plus any extra vanity items and such, or pay a subscription to get all content, and possibly the vanity items too. This way it works for more players; people who just can't get enough will nab the subscription and happily enjoy everything that entails, while more casual players may just buy the game and play that, maybe grab the odd micropayment item here and there, and can just grab a DLC pack when they want to play it.
The real problem is that a lot of MMORPGs on release seem to try and gain the best of both by not only making you pay full price for the game, but then only giving you a limited bundled subscription, so you have to pay subscription fees on top of the up front cost. This is why I didn't even give WoW a go until they had their free-to-try streaming client that didn't require you to by the game disc first.
Any large up front cost should include a generous amount of subscription time either way, but in the pay-once scheme this gives you "unlimited" play time, but only for the stuff you paid the up-front cost for, everything else comes extra, just regular game DLC. Meanwhile the pure subscription gives you X months of play, but you get everything included with that, including a load of the micropayment goodies. It's the smartest system for all involved, but MMORPG history has shown that when the business decisions are made logic is not one of the factors involved
The Tom wrote:It doesn't matter whether or not you can buy the items with in-game cash or real world cash; people will still use their own money because it's quicker that way. This is why I dislike the F2P model - or even the bizarre hybrid of the two that Guild Wars 2 seems to represent. If you play the game without spending any money, it's far too slow and boring. You either hardly get any XP (League of Legends) or you're forced to start out with low level weapons against people who might have had the game for ages or have simply bought the weapons (Planetside 2), which means that it takes even longer to catch up to that level. If you buy stuff, you either end up with all the items in the game and no rewards left to unlock, or have to play the game with half amazing shop-bought items and half crappy, unlocked items that leads to an unbalanced experience.
I'm frustrated that I have this viewpoint because F2P games are so successful that I feel I must be misunderstanding them. Which is why thissounds like a good idea in theory. I'd certainly pay money for this game, but I'd rather that money was funnelled directly into new content rather than supporting an annoying little market where you can buy little coloured hats for your character. I honestly hope that there isn't a way to buy little coloured hats for your character, because I want to go into a dungeon and find the little coloured hats in a chest at the bottom.Haravikk wrote: Any large up front cost should include a generous amount of subscription time either way, but in the pay-once scheme this gives you "unlimited" play time, but only for the stuff you paid the up-front cost for, everything else comes extra, just regular game DLC. Meanwhile the pure subscription gives you X months of play, but you get everything included with that, including a load of the micropayment goodies. It's the smartest system for all involved, but MMORPG history has shown that when the business decisions are made logic is not one of the factors involved
In general, it's a trade-off, isn't it? You either release the game with a subscription fee, and hope that even if the number of players is small, that the recurring fees are enough to keep you in the green. Or you release with a single purchase, and hope that the increased inital sales are enough to keep the game running for a few years and you can release some expansions down the line to keep people interested. Or you go free to play, and hope that people are vain enough to keep your game afloat.
If that all seems confusing, it's because I'm not really sure myself what I want. I'll put it more succinctly here: I hope the game doesn't go with the free to play, microtransaction route, because if the game is good, I'll feel obligated to ruin my looting experience buy purchasing items in order to support the game. I'd rather directly pay the developers some money to give me some more game, rather than buying some useless [&@%!] so they'll give me some more game.
Hopefully there'll be another video where they explain the cost of the game. I'm already sold as of this video; I think the game looks fantastic and I can't wait to play it. However, the video that will really sell me on this game is the one where they reveal how much of my own money I'll have to spend on health potions.
