Alternatives to the MMO monthly rate?

[Vuljatar]

I find the monthly fee preferable to the alternatives.

Microtransactions are good for cosmetic things (the way WoW uses them), but turn the game to shit the instant they buy any sort of in-game advantage.

Free-to-play would of course be ideal, but without the additional money the upkeep of the game suffers.

 

[iFail69]

I'd much prefer to pay for a set amount of hours, when I played WoW I felt pressured to play even when I didn't feel like it to "get my moneys worth" and then I just dropped it entirely, not because I didn't like the game, I didn't have enough time to play it justify the fee.

I also think a system similar to guild wars would work really well. The intital game could cost about $15 with no fee, but offer quite a small amount of content compared to other MMOs. When you want to gain access to other areas of the game world you would pay a small fee (depending on size) to access that zone. Zones you've purchased for would be permanantly open across all accounts.

Using WoW as an example: The tutorial areas and the low level areas around captials would all be included in the inital game. But when you want to move onto the marginally tougher area you'd need to pay $2 or something.

I know exactly how you felt.. even when I wanted to play L4D2 or something, I felt like I had to play WoW because I was paying for it.

Also, I think warhammer online does something similar to what you suggested. You get up to lvl 10 for free or something like that, then you start paying monthly fees (so not exactly what you suggested, but it's similar)

 

[Marasmic]

does anyone have any other ideas for good alternatives to a monthly rate?

I'd recommend checking out Runes of Magic [http://us.runesofmagic.com/us/index.html]. It's basically WoW without the monthly fee and it's a good beginner rpg.

 

[RatRace123]

Well, buying the game to begin with seems like it should be enough. Maybe pay by time, on average a monthly subscription is what like 20 bucks? And a normal person might get 50-70 hours, or so. Just have people pay 20 bucks for 50 hours or something like that. This was said before I believe.

 

[likalaruku]

The MMOs I play are free but charge for good content; mounts, boosts, home extentions, furnature slots, pets, boss looking armor & weapons, hairdye & styles not available in character development, mount armor, etc. Then there's DDO; they charge money for access to a lot of the dungeons.

 

[skwirly715]

i actually dont like the system of being F2P until a certain level. It basically results in a glorified demo, and i dont like demos based on their uncanny knack of hiding the bad bits of a game behind a five minute facade of the best the game has to offer so far. While this may not hold true for a F2P mmo, i do worry that once i hit level 10 or 50 or whatever i will be booted from the game left unfulfilled and wanting more. So its achieving only what a demo would, i just have to waste more time finishing the longer demo and still dont get any closure from the game.

 

[Meggiepants]

I don't think I would mind if they gave me the option of buying hours. The problem with a monthly fee for me is I don't know if I'll have time to play it each month to make paying the monthly fee worth it.

If they told me I could buy a hundred hours for a set amount of money, hours that wouldn't expire, I would probably do that.

That's what APB is doing. Although I don't know if that's the game you're looking for.

APB actually did sound interesting to me, until I found out it was an MMO. Now that I know this is their pricing scheme, I might have to check them out.

Guild Wars 2 is going to be free to play... and with what's going on with the game... paying for labor or not, if ArenaNet can pull it off without asking for monthly payments, I really don't think other companies can excuse monthly payments. But that's me.

The first MMO I played was Guild Wars, and the only reason I played it was because it had no monthly fees. I enjoyed messing around with it for a couple months. I have never really understood why Guild Wars can be free, if all the other companies say they need to charge in order to keep up and running.

I'm willing to pay lifetime, since that equates to a year and I play for that long - sometimes longer - regardless. I don't like the burden of monthly payments, I get why they're doing it -- asking for entrance fee to their servers so they can pay their employees for the continuous work, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I will abide by it though, as the reasons are... well... reasonable. At least until ArenaNet can prove otherwise.

Pardon my ignorance, but is lifetime just a years worth of fees up front? Or is the fee included in the purchase price of the game?

As for alternatives? It depends on what the costs of upkeep are... item shops seem to work fine for most free MMOs, but I have no idea if the costs are equal to the "pay to plays". If they are, it works for them and they don't have their parent company making even more money elsewhere for them... I suppose I'd be up for that -- providing certain restrictions are placed. Otherwise I'm up for what this quote says...

I know it doesn't equate exactly, but games like Mafia Wars and Farmville thrive on this model. A vast majority of their money is made from micro-transactions by less than 10% of their users paying for anything. Now I know their games are incredibly cheap to make, but they don't charge for the game up front either. And it is speculated that they are clearing $100 million last year in profit, all from selling virtual tractors. And of course, gas for said tractor.

 

[Mr. Grey]

I don't think I would mind if they gave me the option of buying hours. The problem with a monthly fee for me is I don't know if I'll have time to play it each month to make paying the monthly fee worth it.

If they told me I could buy a hundred hours for a set amount of money, hours that wouldn't expire, I would probably do that.

That's what APB is doing. Although I don't know if that's the game you're looking for.

APB actually did sound interesting to me, until I found out it was an MMO. Now that I know this is their pricing scheme, I might have to check them out.

I can't seem to get the hang of it on my own, it's definitely better in groups.

And don't try telling me it's in my head, that I can overcome it... I ran over a guy I came to the aid to. It doesn't get any more worse than that. Hehe, still hilarious when I think back on it.

I'm willing to pay lifetime, since that equates to a year and I play for that long - sometimes longer - regardless. I don't like the burden of monthly payments, I get why they're doing it -- asking for entrance fee to their servers so they can pay their employees for the continuous work, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I will abide by it though, as the reasons are... well... reasonable. At least until ArenaNet can prove otherwise.

Pardon my ignorance, but is lifetime just a years worth of fees up front? Or is the fee included in the purchase price of the game?

I did the math from what I remember Lord of the Rings offering for lifetime... it equated to roughly a year. They wanted $200 and if I paid monthly for a year I'd have to pay $180. I did the same math for Champions Online and realized that the outcome was pretty much the same.

I still had to purchase the game though, but I could subscribe with one large payment of $200. No more monthly payments, no more burden... I can return whenever I want to. It's a pretty good feeling and I get to contribute considerably to the game I enjoy.

If they do the same with The Old Republic... I'd be more than happy to pay it. It's the kind of game I'd return to and play for a year total at least.

 

[skwirly715]

I'm willing to pay lifetime, since that equates to a year and I play for that long - sometimes longer - regardless. I don't like the burden of monthly payments, I get why they're doing it -- asking for entrance fee to their servers so they can pay their employees for the continuous work, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I will abide by it though, as the reasons are... well... reasonable. At least until ArenaNet can prove otherwise.

Pardon my ignorance, but is lifetime just a years worth of fees up front? Or is the fee included in the purchase price of the game?

I did the math from what I remember Lord of the Rings offering for lifetime... it equated to roughly a year. They wanted $200 and if I paid monthly for a year I'd have to pay $180. I did the same math for Champions Online and realized that the outcome was pretty much the same.

I still had to purchase the game though, but I could subscribe with one large payment of $200. No more monthly payments, no more burden... I can return whenever I want to. It's a pretty good feeling and I get to contribute considerably to the game I enjoy.

If they do the same with The Old Republic... I'd be more than happy to pay it. It's the kind of game I'd return to and play for a year total at least.[/quote]


I actually kinda like the idea of a lifetime payment. if it really does last for a lifetime, then a set fee is something you can make sure you get your moneys worth out of and still feel comfertable giving up for a while but coming back later

 

[Mr. Grey]

I'm willing to pay lifetime, since that equates to a year and I play for that long - sometimes longer - regardless. I don't like the burden of monthly payments, I get why they're doing it -- asking for entrance fee to their servers so they can pay their employees for the continuous work, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I will abide by it though, as the reasons are... well... reasonable. At least until ArenaNet can prove otherwise.

Pardon my ignorance, but is lifetime just a years worth of fees up front? Or is the fee included in the purchase price of the game?

I did the math from what I remember Lord of the Rings offering for lifetime... it equated to roughly a year. They wanted $200 and if I paid monthly for a year I'd have to pay $180. I did the same math for Champions Online and realized that the outcome was pretty much the same.

I still had to purchase the game though, but I could subscribe with one large payment of $200. No more monthly payments, no more burden... I can return whenever I want to. It's a pretty good feeling and I get to contribute considerably to the game I enjoy.

If they do the same with The Old Republic... I'd be more than happy to pay it. It's the kind of game I'd return to and play for a year total at least.

I actually kinda like the idea of a lifetime payment. if it really does last for a lifetime, then a set fee is something you can make sure you get your moneys worth out of and still feel comfertable giving up for a while but coming back later

From what I can tell it lasts a lifetime, I don't have to pay anymore monthly payments. So I can return to Champions Online whenever I want and that game I love messing with the character creator, playing the character for a few months and then leaving it behind while I replace the character after a month or so to repeat the process.

Lifetime is - of course - given until a set date and given an unlimited amount, usually. In the case of Chamions Online there was a huge mess up, people thought there was an unlimited amount to purchase and they ended up "selling out". So there was a huge shitstorm the likes of which I haven't seen before, then Atari and Cryptic gave in and let everyone purchase until the the end of the extended period of time. They didn't make the same mistake with Star Trek Online, they let that one have unlimited for a set amount of time. They realized they made a lot more money with that then the people who couldn't keep up monthly payments. So hourly payments - like meganmeave [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/profiles/view/meganmeave] suggested - would be perfect to add while letting people pay a lifetime.

Those two in combination could rake in a lot of cash and if I know EA and BioWare it's that they want a lot of cash upfront to keep The Old Republic stable for a longer period of time. Lifetime will grant them that and the people joining in afterwards will continue it, again with hourly payments being ideally added.

 

[skwirly715]

idk about combining them. i understand lifetime like i said if your confident youll keep playing the game but if you have to pay lifetime and hourly? thats alot of dough, and at this point we might be spending more than monthly