Buying MMO's a Year or 2 after release

[Dendio]

Seems to be the best way to do it. Major bugs are fixed, the community is stabalized. The devs are fully in touch with what they need to do. The mmo is usually free to play by then and has a ton of features that were not available on day one.

I see so many considering the new elder scrolls mmo, and can't help but think about how much better and cheaper an experience free to play Rift and SWtor are right now compared to release. With even Wow talking about F2p, I can't help but think that the Elder scrolls MMO will most certainly become free to play in about a year or less after release

What are your guys positions? Wait a year for the kinks to be ironed out or go for broke day one?

 

[Comocat]

Depending on your demeanor it can be fun to play a game at launch. Some bugs seem like the end of the world at the time, but are actually pretty funny further down the road. For example I played Age of Conan at launch and they had a patch shortly after release that turn half of the playerbase invisible. For a game with a philosophy that is essentially an Objectivists wet dream, it was total mayhem. Some bugs are more sad like Warhammer where servers eseentially beat the game a month or so after release by conquering the opposing sides capitol city. Most of the time the first few weeks are "disasterous" then a lot of the character of game and its servers are built shortly after and you miss that getting into a game a year out.

 

[DirgeNovak]

I just started FFXIV this morning and it officially comes out on Tuesday, soooooo...

I started playing WoW in like 2009, after a lot of people had reached the level cap, and learning how to play the game then made me feel like a total noob. Now, I'm learning FFXIV (or rather ARR) at the same time as everybody, and it's a blast. I'm not sure I'd do it for another MMO in the near future, though. I want to try ESO, but I'm not paying two MMO subs at the same time, so we'll see if FFXIV runs out of content by spring (I doubt that'll happen, the new team seems to really know what they're doing)

 

[DanielBrown]

Day one works for me. Not usually that buggy and the most annoying thing is all the players. Usually able to speed past them however.
Started FFXIV today too. Shitload of players, but it has flown perfectly fine nontheless. EU/NA servers are down for maintence now though. Their duty call(private instaces and such) system broke. Couldn't progress at all for ~1 ½ hours before the shut it down, so I guess it can be a bit annoying. -_-'

Edit: Might be worth adding that I started FFXIV:ARR, Age of Conan, possibly Warhammer Online, Rift and Guild Wars 2 on launch day. Apart from FFXIV:ARR, where I don't have that data yet, I never lasted with either game for more than two months.
Started LOTRO and WoW about a year after release and played them like mad. Over three years for LOTRO and on and off for six years with WoW, so there might be some truth in what you say.

Age of Conan is still shit however.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Seems to be the best way to do it. Major bugs are fixed, the community is stabalized. The devs are fully in touch with what they need to do. The mmo is usually free to play by then and has a ton of features that were not available on day one.

I see so many considering the new elder scrolls mmo, and can't help but think about how much better and cheaper an experience free to play Rift and SWtor are right now compared to release. With even Wow talking about F2p, I can't help but think that the Elder scrolls MMO will most certainly become free to play in about a year or less after release

What are your guys positions? Wait a year for the kinks to be ironed out or go for broke day one?

Really depends on the MMO. Well, that far after release, sure, the game is running perfectly, but on the other hand one must ask is anyone actually playing it after a year or two? The list of MMO's that continue to have a strong player base is very limited.

 

[Mutant150]

I see so many considering the new elder scrolls mmo, and can't help but think about how much better and cheaper an experience free to play Rift and SWtor are right now compared to release. With even Wow talking about F2p, I can't help but think that the Elder scrolls MMO will most certainly become free to play in about a year or less after release

Quite likely. I usually wait a few months before joining a new MMO, but with the looming threat of F2P I'll be jumping into ESO at launch and hoping to be done with it before the 'inevitable' happens.

One common downside to starting an MMO well after release is empty starter areas, populated only by the occasional impatient veteran looking to level a heavily twinked alt as quickly as possible. A F2P conversion can mitigate that problem of course.