The Energon Pub

Ok, Im Anti-Paying-MMORG....Am I weird? I just don't like the idea of monthly fee. I know how this system work, but...c'mon! Guild War look cool and its monthly fee!

Okay, look at it this way, I'll use WoW as an example:

WoW has millions of people playing it. Since it's TECHNICALLY part of the internet, they need servers to run it. Servers cost big bucks to maintain.

Then there salaries for programmers. You may be thinking "The game is already out! What do they need programmers for?" They need programmers to update the game near-constantly. Patches, nerfing spells and weapons, and especially World Events. And Burning Crusade, you'd need to hire people to design the new races and monsters.

Making a game on the internet is a LOT different than one for console. Since people can play it for YEARS, you'd need to maintain the servers for that long. And you CAN'T do that based on the $30/CD. It would run out quick.

Then there's Exteel, and you only have to pay for High End Weapons. Otherwise, they get most revenue through advertisements.

To answer your question.
Yeah, you are wierd.

Thats why most games(like WoW) give you a 30 day free trial.

It gives you enough time to decide if the game is fun enough to continue paying for the monthly fee.

Guild Wars, it's free, yes, and it may look fun. But it's not.

Not to mention, Guild Wars has like what, 4 expansions now, each costing $50.00. So it's not like you're really saving anything.

I've played WoW for almost two years now. I just canceled my account. Why? Because the game has just now become boring to me, enough so to actually warrant the cancellation. I've played every character, save for priest, done everything there is to do.

And while I love the guild that I'm in, it's not worth $15 a month for social interaction.

So long as the game is worth paying for to play, so long as it interests you enough in some way to warrant your $15 a month. Play it.

Honestly, if you'd pay $15 a month for a game you don't enjoy playing, then you're dumb.

But, no, you're not weird. But the "anti-paying-mmo" sentiment is iffy.

If you know someone who plays WoW, try their account for a little bit, give you a look at the game without paying.

I don't look at it as any different from paying a monthly or annual fee for Xbox Live. Well I guess it is since with Live you can play 100 or games with others instead of just one slow, horrible looking, LOTR type MMO.

Nightwatcher wrote:I don't look at it as any different from paying a monthly or annual fee for Xbox Live. Well I guess it is since with Live you can play 100 or games with others instead of just one slow, horrible looking, LOTR type MMO.

Xbox live is also a lot cheaper then most of these monthly MMO's

Guild Wars may be different, but with the three chapters and the new expasion that's not out yet, I'm still paying less than I would have at this point for Wow and their 1 expansion.

Guild Wars - 21 months - with original plus the 2 chapters and bonus weapons and extra character slot
$154.98

WoW - 21 months with original game plus expansion
$400.99

How is a monthly fee any different? Cost wise for me, quite a bit! Especially considering you have to multiply my figures by 3 for everyone in my household that plays Guild Wars. We'd considered WoW, but the monthly fee is way too much for 3 people with their own accounts. Yes, we all play together.

And Guild Wars HAS developers working on it all the time. At least 3 or 4 updates every month plus bonus weekend events, plus holiday events. And you get all that even if you only bought one chapter and nothing else.

Sorry, Guild Wars was worth it and more for the money the way I see it.

Really? Because from what I've been told, Guild Wars is like WoW, except Guild Wars does everything wrong.

Cheap price tag does not a good game make.

Or maybe im just "not compatible" whit MMO....
And i DID tried Wow, and i have reason to think its not THAT great! But i won't tell, i don,t want the mod to ban me, since they all seem to like WOW!

Nico wrote:Or maybe im just "not compatible" whit MMO....
And i DID tried Wow, and i have reason to think its not THAT great! But i won't tell, i don,t want the mod to ban me, since they all seem to like WOW!

Uh, I don't believe that ANY mod would ban somebody for voicing their opinion. Least not here on these forums.

By all means destroy the game in a giant essay. I'd love to read it.

Nightwatcher wrote:By all means destroy the game in a giant essay. I'd love to read it.

Waht you don't like WOW?
Anyway, what im about to say..is very weird. I saw my friend play and i saw a freaky bug.

He was running away from a bear....and he was like, very far away from it. The bear did an attack animation (Kinda like 10 meter way) and IT HIM!!!

OOooh..talk about a well-done game! Or wait!!! Do you know about Cursed Blood? If not, check wikipedia!

You know what i hate most about Wow....its graphic aren't really amazing! They are kinda cheapy. I also heard to balance is awfull and when you choose a faction for your account, your stuck whit it! You can't select Horde or Alliance when you make a caracter. if you select Horde at first, your can't select Alliance. NEVER!

Nico wrote:

Nightwatcher wrote:By all means destroy the game in a giant essay. I'd love to read it.

Waht you don't like WOW?
Anyway, what im about to say..is very weird. I saw my friend play and i saw a freaky bug.

He was running away from a bear....and he was like, very far away from it. The bear did an attack animation (Kinda like 10 meter way) and IT HIM!!!

OOooh..talk about a well-done game! Or wait!!! Do you know about Cursed Blood? If not, check wikipedia!

You know what i hate most about Wow....its graphic aren't really amazing! They are kinda cheapy. I also heard to balance is awfull and when you choose a faction for your account, your stuck whit it! You can't select Horde or Alliance when you make a caracter. if you select Horde at first, your can't select Alliance. NEVER!

I don't like MMO's and most RPG's. Period.

Nico wrote:

Nightwatcher wrote:By all means destroy the game in a giant essay. I'd love to read it.

Waht you don't like WOW?
Anyway, what im about to say..is very weird. I saw my friend play and i saw a freaky bug.

He was running away from a bear....and he was like, very far away from it. The bear did an attack animation (Kinda like 10 meter way) and IT HIM!!!

OOooh..talk about a well-done game! Or wait!!! Do you know about Cursed Blood? If not, check wikipedia!

You know what i hate most about Wow....its graphic aren't really amazing! They are kinda cheapy. I also heard to balance is awfull and when you choose a faction for your account, your stuck whit it! You can't select Horde or Alliance when you make a caracter. if you select Horde at first, your can't select Alliance. NEVER!

Ummm, wow.

The game glitches sometimes, so a bear may look far away, but in reality it's right next to the character.

Cursed Blood was removed shortly after Zul'Gurub was released as a dungeon.

Of course the graphics are cheapy. We're talking about a MMO, if the game had uber graphics like God Of War, do you know how slow a connection would be? Nobody would be able to play the game.

As for the whole character thing. Yeah, thats not true. Balance is sort of an issue, not much of one. You're not stuck playing on only Horde or Alliance, I have characters on the same server on both Horde and Alliance.

I have no clue where you heard that from, but wow.

You know I think I would like these type of games if they didn't seem like carbon copies of each other. Why can't an MMO have an intuitive fighting engine? I want a game that's actually like .Hack the anime. I want to be able to have insane fights while crossing bridges and rivers and other areas. If I see two guys battling inside a house, I want to be able to cave the roof in on them and take their items. I want to actually feel like I'm doing something in one of these games besides sitting there and swinging an axe and occasionally throwing out some spell that looks like magical jello. And yet. People keep lapping this repeated **** up like it's actually fun. When in fact it's just repeptitive leveling with the occasional boring battle. It's the equivalent of watching an ant cross cement or paint drying or grass growing...Except you pay $30 a month for it.

Another game that pisses me off that gets tons of praise is that horrible game Oblivion for PC and 360. It's like WoW except not online and you can go into first person. Seriously I can't believe people actually play that game for 80 hours and enjoy it. Oh yes let's run for hours from a castle to....Another castle to talk to twenty people, get a potion and then run back to somewhere else.

Not even that Star Wars MMO could keep me interested. What's the **** point in being a bounty hunter if you have to ask the person if you can fight him?! What kind of bounty hunting is that!? You can't even get the drop on one of your bounties because you have to request to fight him.... Wow that's a really stupid idea. If I'm a hunter (in whatever game) I should be able to scout out my bounty, figure out where they're going, set up in some reclusive spot, tail them, and then kill them however I see fit.

People say these games are so open ended and that you can do whatever you like. That's just wrong. All these MMO's are, are linear, dungeon crawlers, mixed with an online chat room and Pokemon leveling.

Nightwatcher wrote:You know I think I would like these type of games if they didn't seem like carbon copies of each other. Why can't an MMO have an intuitive fighting engine? I want a game that's actually like .Hack the anime. I want to be able to have insane fights while crossing bridges and rivers and other areas. If I see two guys battling inside a house, I want to be able to cave the roof in on them and take their items. I want to actually feel like I'm doing something in one of these games besides sitting there and swinging an axe and occasionally throwing out some spell that looks like magical jello. And yet. People keep lapping this repeated **** up like it's actually fun. When in fact it's just repeptitive leveling with the occasional boring battle. It's the equivalent of watching an ant cross cement or paint drying or grass growing...Except you pay $30 a month for it.

Another game that pisses me off that gets tons of praise is that horrible game Oblivion for PC and 360. It's like WoW except not online and you can go into first person. Seriously I can't believe people actually play that game for 80 hours and enjoy it. Oh yes let's run for hours from a castle to....Another castle to talk to twenty people, get a potion and then run back to somewhere else.

Not even that Star Wars MMO could keep me interested. What's the **** point in being a bounty hunter if you have to ask the person if you can fight him?! What kind of bounty hunting is that!? You can't even get the drop on one of your bounties because you have to request to fight him.... Wow that's a really stupid idea. If I'm a hunter (in whatever game) I should be able to scout out my bounty, figure out where they're going, set up in some reclusive spot, tail them, and then kill them however I see fit.

People say these games are so open ended and that you can do whatever you like. That's just wrong. All these MMO's are, are linear, dungeon crawlers, mixed with an online chat room and Pokemon leveling.

I agree, thats a huge thing. Unfortunately it boils down to cash. If a game was made like .Hack, where you could do all this stuff, could you imagine how long that game would take to be put out onto the market? I think we'd have a better chance at seeing DUke Nukem Forever come out before that happens.

The reason Oblivion is so boring, is that, when you take games like WoW, and KOTR, they follow the D20 system, they cut down on things that make D20 tedious and boring, and get you right into the action.

However with Oblivion, they keep it all in, so it really is just playing a D20 game on a console. I've had plagues that were more entertaining.

Being a huge Star Wars fan, I played KOTR, KOTR 2, and Galaxies. Galaxies was boring as sin. KOTR was awesome, but looking back, there was so much stuff that could have been done better. Hopefully though, BioWare will pull one through for us, since they reclaimed the right to make Star Wars games, maybe a BioWare version of Galaxies, that would rock.

The biggest thing WoW has to offer, is PVP. It provides the most open ended bit of gameplay. You can go onto a pvp server, and run around randomly killing players on the opposite faction. Don't have to talk to em, request a duel, or anything like that. Just run up and kill. The arena even takes it a bit farther, with allowing you to kill anyone you're not grouped with.

But yeah, when you get right down to it, MMO's are all about grinding. I've done so much grinding on WoW, spent so many hours. Was it worth it? I have no clue.

But I agree, I'm holding out for that one RPG/MMO that lets you do whatever the hell you want to. If I want to build a store, lure people inside with my awesome bargain prices, then lock them in and unleash pet dinosaurs on them. I should be able to do so.

Hell yes! Instead of these companies directly trying to compete and make a duplicate of WoW, why not take their time (and 4-5 years) and just completely kill it? Take what makes WoW fun for people and enhance it. Make it better. Pull a million dollar man and make it faster better etc. No one seems to be willing to do this. I was watching The Loop on Attack of the Show a few weeks back and they actually went in depth on this. And it seems like most people feel the same about it. Adam Sessler (oh how I loathe him) actually mirrored my thoughts on this game genre. And to be honest, if they don't start coming up with new ideas I think you'll see MMO's (more well known ones) flicker and die here in the next 4 years. You can only rely on the same formula for so long before people finally say no more.

And yeah. Bioware would make an excellent Star Wars MMO. KOTOR was good (not excellent) and Jade Empire was so-so. I think if they were to improve on the combat engine and not make it turn based they would have a winner. And then add in the team aspect of Battlefront. Then throw it all online. I would absolutely love to move up in the rebel alliance, recruit a squad of other users, and then get sent on a mission to destroy an imperial complex on Feluccia or something. I mean people would really be able to get into that kind of stuff. Even better would be to throw in the GRAW 2 or Gears of War cover system.

Imagine you and your team have to make their way through a forest to the base that has just gone online (not to mention that another member has to go through pilot training to fly the spacecraft and drop you off). You all make it up to the base and are hiding in the tree line. And remember all these stormtroopers are real people who have gone through the academy (which would have "grade levels" they would have to pass to become a trooper), are trained well and have learned from older members of the game that strikes are not only possible, but are probable. Two of your team go to flank him but because his helmet has better audio receptors he hears your men coming and runs inside the building. Now through a mic he's telling the other troopers to get on high alert. Sirens sound and your team has been had. Just imagine blowing a hole into the base and the troopers are ready. The people playing as them know that if they die they have to start over. They're in essence playing to live. I mean that would be intense. But no. We have to have boring crap that's been done a thousand times.

Another class would of course be the Jedi or Sith. When starting the game you would randomly be chosen to be force sensitive or not. Only lets say 2% of the entire games users would get that shot. Of course they wouldn't have to act upon it if they didn't want to. I would love to go through training as a Jedi. Having training duels against other people. Even starting bonds or fueds with other students. Hell maybe if you pissed someone off enough they would eventually develop dark side powers and become a dark jedi or get picked up by someone who was a sith lord.

All relevant information would be able to be looked up on the holonet. If you're a bounty hunter you could enter a special PIN code that was given to you by the guild and you could see recent bounties on people who stole parts from a junk shop or whatever. You could go and track them down through asking real people over your Mic.

Or use the holonet to just check what news is happening around the galaxy. See where the hot spots and fighting are so you can avoid them if you're a merchant or smuggler. **** like that is intuitive and would keep people interested.

Shadowman wrote:Really? Because from what I've been told, Guild Wars is like WoW, except Guild Wars does everything wrong.

Cheap price tag does not a good game make.

See I don't think it's like WoW at all, but I've also not played Wow, I've only watched other people playing.

Guild Wars only allows you to take 8 skills with you when you go out of a town. You really have to think about your build and what skills will work together when you leave and what weapons to take.

Up until Nightfall's release it didn't have nearly the grind, and PVP was highly balanced. PVP is still highly balanced but they did introduce a bit of grind with Nightfall, but if you're playing through the storyline that grind all but vanishes.

They've introduced Heroes in Nightfall that you can take with you along with Henchmen so you don't have to play with other people if you just feel like screwing around.

I'm not saying Guild Wars is perfect, far from it, but for no monthly fees and a one time buying price it was far worth my time and money playing it. It still is. It's not the cheap clone of WoW I think people make it out to be. It is very different gameplay and the instanced areas make for some challenge and you still get access to bosses and what not.

It really boils down to what you're looking for and Guild Wars delivered on that for me.

If you want to give it a try I think I still have my free trial keys laying around here somewhere as well.

No, I've played Guild Wars before. It wasn't very good.

I hate grinding. THAT'S my problem with MMOs, not paying. I don't want to sit around for five hours killing progressivly larger beings until I can go on a quest. I want to get to the meat of the action!

ONE game, ever, has been both good and free: Exteel. OH! And look how that turned up, one step away from Development Hell.

But then there's the rumored "Starcraft Worlds." Tim Buckley said it was "Unfair" in that, should it come out, it would be the most successful MMO of all time, to the point that ever other MMO company might as well quit the game.

I'd definitely buy it.

Nico wrote:Ok, Im Anti-Paying-MMORG....im a weird? I just don't like the idea of monthly fee. I know how this system work, but...c'mon! Guild War look cool and its monthly fee!

I'm on your side, I always say, I just pay one time for a game and that's all, because my Transformers collecting use already all my attention, and besides I like to have more great Transformers on my side as playing a MMO which I should pay all month and with all money they get the most games couldn't have some more options how to create a character...I just say lame !!!

Shadowman wrote:But then there's the rumored "Starcraft Worlds." Tim Buckley said it was "Unfair" in that, should it come out, it would be the most successful MMO of all time, to the point that ever other MMO company might as well quit the game.

I'd definitely buy it.

Of course he's probably bullshitting and it'll be just like the majority of other MMO's on the market. And even if it is the best, other companies won't quit because of it. They'll make new ones with an extra feature and people will then swarm to that instead.

Nightwatcher wrote:

Shadowman wrote:But then there's the rumored "Starcraft Worlds." Tim Buckley said it was "Unfair" in that, should it come out, it would be the most successful MMO of all time, to the point that ever other MMO company might as well quit the game.

I'd definitely buy it.

Of course he's probably bullshitting and it'll be just like the majority of other MMO's on the market. And even if it is the best, other companies won't quit because of it. They'll make new ones with an extra feature and people will then swarm to that instead.

World of Starcraft, or Universe of Starcraft will never happen for one reason alone.

World of Warcraft.

Why would Blizzard go through all the hassle of making another MMO, doing the servers, models, all that stuff all over again, just to take away business from themselves?

I mean honestly, with all the people playing World of Warcraft, how many would leave to play a Starcraft MMO? It's just not good/smart business.

Nightwatcher wrote:Hell yes! Instead of these companies directly trying to compete and make a duplicate of WoW, why not take their time (and 4-5 years) and just completely kill it? Take what makes WoW fun for people and enhance it. Make it better. Pull a million dollar man and make it faster better etc. No one seems to be willing to do this. I was watching The Loop on Attack of the Show a few weeks back and they actually went in depth on this. And it seems like most people feel the same about it. Adam Sessler (oh how I loathe him) actually mirrored my thoughts on this game genre. And to be honest, if they don't start coming up with new ideas I think you'll see MMO's (more well known ones) flicker and die here in the next 4 years. You can only rely on the same formula for so long before people finally say no more.

I think you are So very wrong on that last part. This type of MMORPG will be succesful for years to come. Cause for some reason, milions of people like to do the grind treadmill everyday.

Also, don't count on Bioware to do anything Starwars or D&D anymore. They will only develop things without licenses from now on, allowing them to get creative etc.

I know MMO can't have super-awesome graphic, but still....I think they could have made it slightly better. As a proof, someone extracted (somehow) Wow model and put them in...WARCRAFT 3!!!

Nightwatcher wrote:Hell yes! Instead of these companies directly trying to compete and make a duplicate of WoW, why not take their time (and 4-5 years) and just completely kill it? Take what makes WoW fun for people and enhance it. Make it better. Pull a million dollar man and make it faster better etc. No one seems to be willing to do this. I was watching The Loop on Attack of the Show a few weeks back and they actually went in depth on this. And it seems like most people feel the same about it. Adam Sessler (oh how I loathe him) actually mirrored my thoughts on this game genre. And to be honest, if they don't start coming up with new ideas I think you'll see MMO's (more well known ones) flicker and die here in the next 4 years. You can only rely on the same formula for so long before people finally say no more.

And yeah. Bioware would make an excellent Star Wars MMO. KOTOR was good (not excellent) and Jade Empire was so-so. I think if they were to improve on the combat engine and not make it turn based they would have a winner. And then add in the team aspect of Battlefront. Then throw it all online. I would absolutely love to move up in the rebel alliance, recruit a squad of other users, and then get sent on a mission to destroy an imperial complex on Feluccia or something. I mean people would really be able to get into that kind of stuff. Even better would be to throw in the GRAW 2 or Gears of War cover system.

Imagine you and your team have to make their way through a forest to the base that has just gone online (not to mention that another member has to go through pilot training to fly the spacecraft and drop you off). You all make it up to the base and are hiding in the tree line. And remember all these stormtroopers are real people who have gone through the academy (which would have "grade levels" they would have to pass to become a trooper), are trained well and have learned from older members of the game that strikes are not only possible, but are probable. Two of your team go to flank him but because his helmet has better audio receptors he hears your men coming and runs inside the building. Now through a mic he's telling the other troopers to get on high alert. Sirens sound and your team has been had. Just imagine blowing a hole into the base and the troopers are ready. The people playing as them know that if they die they have to start over. They're in essence playing to live. I mean that would be intense. But no. We have to have boring crap that's been done a thousand times.

Another class would of course be the Jedi or Sith. When starting the game you would randomly be chosen to be force sensitive or not. Only lets say 2% of the entire games users would get that shot. Of course they wouldn't have to act upon it if they didn't want to. I would love to go through training as a Jedi. Having training duels against other people. Even starting bonds or fueds with other students. Hell maybe if you pissed someone off enough they would eventually develop dark side powers and become a dark jedi or get picked up by someone who was a sith lord.

All relevant information would be able to be looked up on the holonet. If you're a bounty hunter you could enter a special PIN code that was given to you by the guild and you could see recent bounties on people who stole parts from a junk shop or whatever. You could go and track them down through asking real people over your Mic.

Or use the holonet to just check what news is happening around the galaxy. See where the hot spots and fighting are so you can avoid them if you're a merchant or smuggler. **** like that is intuitive and would keep people interested.

Interresting concept. Really good, but some people wouldn't like it for some reason...And yes, MMO are dungeon-crawl pokemon-ish game (the kind of game i got bored off!)

I think they should make a really awesome MMO, whit concept like Nightwatcher said. Hell, if it take 6 year to make, who care if the game remain on top for 8 years! Not to mention expansion pack...

THAT is the kind of game i wouldnt mind to pay, since it would be really worth it.

A game doeas not need perfect graphic. It just need good-looking but not "uber-awesome" graphic. Just better then Wow.

Physic and game system is inportant. It would b better to have a combat system more akin to Fable and less like Wow!

yes you are wierd since there are tons of free mmorpg's on the net just google for free mmorpg and you'll find a site or two that have the clients for you to dl and to play most of them are fun ^^