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Bottom line is, any game company has to make money....nothing is ever gonna be "free" so the business model is not really the concern, what really matters is the quality of the game and whether or not it's fun to play...
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I've always always hated f2p. It is great to try a game out first but overall if you choose to play the game you are going to end up spending a crap load more on the whole package. Subscription based games never bothered me because of the sub, they bothered me because they were rushed and a buggy mess.
I really hope Mark is correct and 3-5 years later they all emplode and go away.
Playing: Smite, Marvel Heroes Played: Nexus:Kingdom of the Winds, Everquest, DAoC, Everquest 2, WoW, Matrix Online, Vangaurd, SWG, DDO, EVE, Fallen Earth, LoTRo, CoX, Champions Online, WAR, Darkfall, Mortal Online, Guild Wars, Rift, Tera, Aion, AoC, Gods and Heroes, DCUO, FF14, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, Wildstar, ESO, ArcheAge Waiting On: Nothing. Mmorpg's are dead.
F2P has been around since 1996, it created Nexon Inc, a juggernaut and companies are making more money with F2P than without it.
Two of the largest gaming companies were built on it. Turbine is making far more now than when they did at the peak of LotRo/DDO, It kept Funcom from closing its doors when AoC lost a large portion of its playerbase. NCSoft is still one of the largest MMO makers on the planet without subscriptions...Jacobs is looking a fool to everyone but former hardcore DaoC players, even the non-harcore DaoC players dont like him which is why they are over in the TESO forums instead of here.
But, this is coming from a man knowing he is targetting a portion of a small portion of gamers, some of the few that think DaoC was the best game. So, when you are targetting 50-75k people, its easy to hit your mark...a F2P game can cough and get 10x that many people and far more money.
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This warning coming from Mark Jacobs in a recent article he did which included his opinion on the unsustainable f2p model so many games are using.
"Camelot Unchained creator and long-time MMO veteran Mark Jacobs has warned of an impending free-to-play “apocalypse” in three to five years time, thanks to a rush towards unsustainable free-to-play models. He predicted to VG247 that developers will close and publishers stand to lose a lot of money.
“The whole free-to-play thing isn’t going away tomorrow,” Jacobs stressed, “but let’s just see what happens in three to five years – and I’m betting closer to three – where free-to-play will become just another model. Right now you’ve got everybody chasing it, going ‘Isn’t this great? Free to play, we’re going to make so much money’”.
Jacobs felt that many developers and publishers are chasing the free-to-play market in the hope that a small percentage of players will actually lay down money on micro-payment items. He doesn’t see it as an economically viable strategy."
If you don't realize this as setting the ground work for charging a box fee and per expansion prices, you're kidding yourself. The anti-F2P clowns handed devs the golden key to their wallets when they gave the devs "B2P", and you're going to see more and more devs simply running with that.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
No idea where this subject went and I am not going to go through all that eye poking and name calling.
So I will just refer to the OP.
I doubt it.
These companies with F2P models have spent MILLIONS of dollars into research on the subject and if it would be a viable method of making money. They don't give a rats ass about the game. They care about their money....period.
Not only for today or the next year but for the next DECADE!
Any business is focused on making money for a long time not a short while. Seeing how much it costs to produce MMOs.
Ahem.... 2 million for this games KS as example....No one goes into this hoping not to make money.
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Only time will tell, but in my opinion I think that the risk for developer getting into the F2P market is getting bigger and bigger and after some point the risk is not going to be worth the benefit.
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MarkJacobsCEO City State EntertainmentMemberRarePosts: 649
Originally posted by Dren_Utogi
Originally posted by Mkilbride
He also said that, if the game is in a state where it has to go F2P...he's shutting it down.
THis really the wrong attiude and something that kills games when a developer speaks.
LotrO had been running all server , without merging , with healthy populations for years. Then they did DDo which also had an impressive following before free to play mmove, after free to play they added servers.
What people like Mark Jacobs is missing is the fact the free to play opens up a game world to a bigger market share, and it is not about making 10 dollars a month, but 1 dollar a minute.
Turbine is doing extremely well in that regard, SOE as well.
SO what Mark Jacobs is telling his fans of CU, I would rather have a limited number of players, make them spend 9.99 for what could be a medicre game, rather then having a larger player base who will spend 1 dollar minute and give the subscription players , actual players to play with.
CU is a nich game, and to think little under 9k people can keep a server alive... is laughable and it is also a waste of resources.
Aww, I thought we were just starting to get along. Seriously though, here is my thinking:
>>> What people like Mark Jacobs is missing is the fact the free to play opens up a game world to a bigger market share, and it is not about making 10 dollars a month, but 1 dollar a minute.
Far from it. I know this and totally respect the games that can pull this off well. However, it's not the game I want to make. I don't want to deal with a large number of free players in an RvR-based game. I absolutely recognize how successful some, not all, FTP comversions and games have been. Why is it wrong for me to want to make a smaller game and use KS to help guage interest if it is okay for FTP players to have their own game(s)?
>>>>Turbine is doing extremely well in that regard, SOE as well.
They were doing extremely well. It saved the game.
>>>>SO what Mark Jacobs is telling his fans of CU, I would rather have a limited number of players, make them spend 9.99 for what could be a medicre game, rather then having a larger player base who will spend 1 dollar minute and give the subscription players , actual players to play with.
Without addresing the mediocre part, I'm not making anybody do anything, I'm asking. Again, that's the point of the KSer. If we don't fund, I end up wasting about 150K. OTOH, if I try to make the game without the Kickstarter and it fails, I lose a lot more than that.
>>>>CU is a nich game, and to think little under 9k people can keep a server alive... is laughable and it is also a waste of resources.
Well, yes and no. Even if we had 10K paying $10 per month, that's 1.2M. That's not a large amount but it is not $0 either. Now, if we only had 10K at launch, then we would be a bad investment for me but assuming that my belief is that 30K - 50K would pay for this game, then it becomes a good investment.
What it boils down to is simply this, I don't want to try to make a FTP game and I'm promising my backers that the game will be a subscription-based game. Why is wanting to make a small game that appeals to a niche audience suddenly a bad thing especially as I've said the sub price will be below the industry average?
Keep one thing in mind please and that is the potential ratio of backers to possible players. Do you really think that games such as Torment and Project Eternity will only sell the copies that they have pre-sold on KS (in other words, no new orders)? Of course not evenif they are just good games but not outstanding. So, what could the possible ratio be between pre-sold and on release? Back in my EA days, I was told by all the sales folks that PC pre-orders accounted for <10% of total sales (this was back in 2008 and console sales traditionally had a much higher %). Now, if we look at KS as a more risky version of a pre-order, what is that percentage? If you also keep in mind that Obisidian's great games sold in the millions, then their sales on the KS would be, to use the parlance here, an epic failure if that's all they sold. Now, what do you think the chances of that really are? My guess is that if PE is the game I expect it will be, that 73K will represent less than 10% of their total sales. Now, I'm not saying that CU will get that high of a number, as a matter of fact I doubt that. OTOH, is it so unreasonable to think that if we fund with 15K backers that we would get a 3X once the game goes LIVE. I don't think it is. Again, this is all conjecture till one of the mega-hits of KS like Project Eternity goes up for sale.
Anyway, no matter what I'm taking the biggest risk as I already have by funding and putting my name back out there in interviews, in forums, etc.
The point of any of these games is to make money. The price model matters little. The most important aspect is how each model is handled and monetized.
In theory, the P2P model fits the community driven goals of MMO's the best. In theory everyone pays the same and are on equal footing once in the game world, whether it be opportunities or items. In practice, RMT runs rampant in these games allowing many players to buy their way to the top. Players often stick or leave these games based on time/money invested rather than quality.
A poorly implemented FTP model is just as bad. Allowing players to literally pay to win is terrible and goes against what i believe MMO's stand for and shoud be about. Requiring the cash shop as a means to most efficiently clear or even run content is bad. Content is actually built around the need for these shops. These games nickel and dime you around every corner and in the end circumvent what the players believe to be a better deal.
A proper B2P model should be the future, provided it's handled correctly. GW2 was on the right track but slipped up a bit with their shop. Fluff should be the name of the game. Give players a limitless amount of it and they'll be happy. The key is to focus on quality content first, absent of any items available in the shop and leave the shop for purely non combat related items. This is where GW2 slipped up in my eyes. No one cares about town clothes or exp boosts. They want armor skins, weapon skins, housing options, and so on.
The trick is to make everything that's available in the shop also available in game but get rid of the terriblly low RNG factor typically surrounding them. Give players long quest chains to obtain them and they'll do it, but also give them a bonus for acquiring them from said quest and not from the shop. Players with little time can purchase the fluff and players that want to earn them in game can do so with added "bragging rights" so to speak.
Bottom line is, how each model is implemented and handled is more important that the model itself.
CU is a nich game, and to think little under 9k people can keep a server alive... is laughable and it is also a waste of resources.
Hmm Dren can you give me a source for this number? Kickstart backers have been informed he is not interested in making the next WoW killer and a niche rvr with 30,000 to 40,000 is enough.:)
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MarkJacobsCEO City State EntertainmentMemberRarePosts: 649
Originally posted by Mtibbs1989
Originally posted by Dren_Utogi
Originally posted by Mkilbride
He also said that, if the game is in a state where it has to go F2P...he's shutting it down.
THis really the wrong attiude and something that kills games when a developer speaks.
LotrO had been running all server , without merging , with healthy populations for years. Then they did DDo which also had an impressive following before free to play mmove, after free to play they added servers.
What people like Mark Jacobs is missing is the fact the free to play opens up a game world to a bigger market share, and it is not about making 10 dollars a month, but 1 dollar a minute.
Turbine is doing extremely well in that regard, SOE as well.
SO what Mark Jacobs is telling his fans of CU, I would rather have a limited number of players, make them spend 9.99 for what could be a medicre game, rather then having a larger player base who will spend 1 dollar minute and give the subscription players , actual players to play with.
CU is a nich game, and to think little under 9k people can keep a server alive... is laughable and it is also a waste of resources.
Well, if I were to bash a MMO model then have to convert to it. It'd be a complete embarassment. However, if his game doesn't do good and shuts down. I feel sorry for the millions of dollars wasted to an incompetent developer. Could you source the info on where he stated that?
How's this. BTW, where did I bash the FTP model? I'm not bashing it at all. What I stated in the interview was that I believe that the FTP model won't be as sustainable across the entire industry in 3-5 years because of all the competition. I also said in the same interview and in other posts that FTP is here to stay but not here to stay as "The One Model" that many companies and developers say it is.
As I said years ago at GDC, there is room in this industry for all models and those that think that only one model will not only "win" and stay as the industry model will be proved wrong just as they have every time that the industry and pundits have said so in the past. Do you remember the two cycles of advertising-based gaming? First on the PC and now in the mobile space. How sustainable did that turn out to be? Nothing dominates forever in the gaming space except WoW.
Edit: And just so everyone is perfectly clear, sub-based games are not the one model either, no matter who makes them. Sub-based games will remain where as one of the models in the industry, nothing more than that.
I genuinely hope F2P goes away soon. It's not a good fit for community driven games like MMO's. Sure it brings a few players back to a failing game for a month or two but other than that it's not really helping to advance the genre.
I feel the same way. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that we are currently in the "Dark Ages" of MMORPGs.
I get a sick feeling when I see people saying things like, "I will try it when it goes F2P". When. It's become an assumption that any given game will become F2P.
Granted, I've been playing MMOs since they were all less than $10 a month. The standard $15 a month, that has been the standard for a very long time now, is still extremely cheap.
To quote a decent rapper though, "if I could use these powers for good I wouldn't, not even if I could".
If I could wave a magic wand I can't honestly say I would fix things. I sort of believe that some companies and a great many players need to learn a lesson here. I understand that sounds incredibly arrogant, but I feel that way.
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You mean sustainable like how the subscription model is able to sustain itself in the current day market?
I think you're missing a lot of the statistics that are out there. Subscription based MMO's are very few and far apart. Those who have chosen the path of subscription have utterly failed (no offense to any other developers) in their attempt to make a successful subscription based game.
What are you bringing to the table that no one else has already brought? Because if you don't have a sure plan to keep your game running people are wasting their money investing in your product.
The most recent crop of sub games that went F2P did so because they weren't great games, and/or were managed improperly.
Example: Tera - Great combat system, but it has very little real content, mobs just repeat with different colorations and maybe a little bling. Pretty much still a non-existant "end game". Poor localization at US launch. Poor management at launch, which convinced a good portion of the playerbase that they were doing a money-grab, by seemingly concentrating more on the cash-shop, than end-game content and fixing bugs.
The model wasn't the problem. The game and associated management was.
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You mean sustainable like how the subscription model is able to sustain itself in the current day market?
I think you're missing a lot of the statistics that are out there. Subscription based MMO's are very few and far apart. Those who have chosen the path of subscription have utterly failed (no offense to any other developers) in their attempt to make a successful subscription based game.
What are you bringing to the table that no one else has already brought? Because if you don't have a sure plan to keep your game running people are wasting their money investing in your product.
The most recent crop of sub games that went F2P did so because they weren't great games, and/or were managed improperly.
Example: Tera - Great combat system, but it has very little real content, mobs just repeat with different colorations and maybe a little bling. Pretty much still a non-existant "end game". Poor localization at US launch. Poor management at launch, which convinced a good portion of the playerbase that they were doing a money-grab, by seemingly concentrating more on the cash-shop, than end-game content and fixing bugs.
The model wasn't the problem. The game and associated management was.
Which is exactly why I'm asking MJ what is he bringing to the table? RvR? it has been done many times over now with Warhammer online, GW2, Rift, etc.
None of those had actual RvR.
RvR requires a minimum of 3 factions. To do it properly, they cannot be "mirrored" factions, either. RvR is persistent. There is no instancing in RvR. Factions cannot speak to each other in RvR. There is no FFA pvp in RvR.
Warhammer, Rift: 2 factions, some instancing.
GW2's WvWvW is 2 week long instanced arenas, with mirrored classes and races.
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Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
I am not a fan of F2P, but I disagree on this disaster thing, most likely it is going to mutate and actualy become better hybrid model.
If any developer want to be successfull, they need to be adoptive to all kind of play styles.
Lets be real, not everyone likes a red car, or wear same clothes, or eat same food, etc, etc, etc....
Bottom line is, any game company has to make money....nothing is ever gonna be "free" so the business model is not really the concern, what really matters is the quality of the game and whether or not it's fun to play...
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I've always always hated f2p. It is great to try a game out first but overall if you choose to play the game you are going to end up spending a crap load more on the whole package. Subscription based games never bothered me because of the sub, they bothered me because they were rushed and a buggy mess.
I really hope Mark is correct and 3-5 years later they all emplode and go away.
Playing: Smite, Marvel Heroes
Played: Nexus:Kingdom of the Winds, Everquest, DAoC, Everquest 2, WoW, Matrix Online, Vangaurd, SWG, DDO, EVE, Fallen Earth, LoTRo, CoX, Champions Online, WAR, Darkfall, Mortal Online, Guild Wars, Rift, Tera, Aion, AoC, Gods and Heroes, DCUO, FF14, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, Wildstar, ESO, ArcheAge
Waiting On: Nothing. Mmorpg's are dead.
Jacobs proved in yet another way he is clueless.
F2P has been around since 1996, it created Nexon Inc, a juggernaut and companies are making more money with F2P than without it.
Two of the largest gaming companies were built on it. Turbine is making far more now than when they did at the peak of LotRo/DDO, It kept Funcom from closing its doors when AoC lost a large portion of its playerbase. NCSoft is still one of the largest MMO makers on the planet without subscriptions...Jacobs is looking a fool to everyone but former hardcore DaoC players, even the non-harcore DaoC players dont like him which is why they are over in the TESO forums instead of here.
But, this is coming from a man knowing he is targetting a portion of a small portion of gamers, some of the few that think DaoC was the best game. So, when you are targetting 50-75k people, its easy to hit your mark...a F2P game can cough and get 10x that many people and far more money.
Jacobs needs to wake up to reality.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
If you don't realize this as setting the ground work for charging a box fee and per expansion prices, you're kidding yourself. The anti-F2P clowns handed devs the golden key to their wallets when they gave the devs "B2P", and you're going to see more and more devs simply running with that.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
No idea where this subject went and I am not going to go through all that eye poking and name calling.
So I will just refer to the OP.
I doubt it.
These companies with F2P models have spent MILLIONS of dollars into research on the subject and if it would be a viable method of making money. They don't give a rats ass about the game. They care about their money....period.
Not only for today or the next year but for the next DECADE!
Any business is focused on making money for a long time not a short while. Seeing how much it costs to produce MMOs.
Ahem.... 2 million for this games KS as example....No one goes into this hoping not to make money.
Which business model is superior?
Thats for a market analyst to decide.
Which method is better for the player?
Thats YOUR decision.
If you wanna play F2P games...thats fine.
If you wanna play SUB games...thats fine.
If you wanna play B2P games....thats fine!!!
Whatever the heck floats your boat and have fun!
MMORPG Gamers/Developers need a reality check!
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Aww, I thought we were just starting to get along.
Seriously though, here is my thinking:
>>> What people like Mark Jacobs is missing is the fact the free to play opens up a game world to a bigger market share, and it is not about making 10 dollars a month, but 1 dollar a minute.
Far from it. I know this and totally respect the games that can pull this off well. However, it's not the game I want to make. I don't want to deal with a large number of free players in an RvR-based game. I absolutely recognize how successful some, not all, FTP comversions and games have been. Why is it wrong for me to want to make a smaller game and use KS to help guage interest if it is okay for FTP players to have their own game(s)?
>>>>Turbine is doing extremely well in that regard, SOE as well.
They were doing extremely well. It saved the game.
>>>>SO what Mark Jacobs is telling his fans of CU, I would rather have a limited number of players, make them spend 9.99 for what could be a medicre game, rather then having a larger player base who will spend 1 dollar minute and give the subscription players , actual players to play with.
Without addresing the mediocre part, I'm not making anybody do anything, I'm asking. Again, that's the point of the KSer. If we don't fund, I end up wasting about 150K. OTOH, if I try to make the game without the Kickstarter and it fails, I lose a lot more than that.
>>>>CU is a nich game, and to think little under 9k people can keep a server alive... is laughable and it is also a waste of resources.
Well, yes and no. Even if we had 10K paying $10 per month, that's 1.2M. That's not a large amount but it is not $0 either. Now, if we only had 10K at launch, then we would be a bad investment for me but assuming that my belief is that 30K - 50K would pay for this game, then it becomes a good investment.
What it boils down to is simply this, I don't want to try to make a FTP game and I'm promising my backers that the game will be a subscription-based game. Why is wanting to make a small game that appeals to a niche audience suddenly a bad thing especially as I've said the sub price will be below the industry average?
Keep one thing in mind please and that is the potential ratio of backers to possible players. Do you really think that games such as Torment and Project Eternity will only sell the copies that they have pre-sold on KS (in other words, no new orders)? Of course not evenif they are just good games but not outstanding. So, what could the possible ratio be between pre-sold and on release? Back in my EA days, I was told by all the sales folks that PC pre-orders accounted for <10% of total sales (this was back in 2008 and console sales traditionally had a much higher %). Now, if we look at KS as a more risky version of a pre-order, what is that percentage? If you also keep in mind that Obisidian's great games sold in the millions, then their sales on the KS would be, to use the parlance here, an epic failure if that's all they sold. Now, what do you think the chances of that really are? My guess is that if PE is the game I expect it will be, that 73K will represent less than 10% of their total sales. Now, I'm not saying that CU will get that high of a number, as a matter of fact I doubt that. OTOH, is it so unreasonable to think that if we fund with 15K backers that we would get a 3X once the game goes LIVE. I don't think it is. Again, this is all conjecture till one of the mega-hits of KS like Project Eternity goes up for sale.
Anyway, no matter what I'm taking the biggest risk as I already have by funding and putting my name back out there in interviews, in forums, etc.
Mark Jacobs
CEO, City State Entertainment
The point of any of these games is to make money. The price model matters little. The most important aspect is how each model is handled and monetized.
In theory, the P2P model fits the community driven goals of MMO's the best. In theory everyone pays the same and are on equal footing once in the game world, whether it be opportunities or items. In practice, RMT runs rampant in these games allowing many players to buy their way to the top. Players often stick or leave these games based on time/money invested rather than quality.
A poorly implemented FTP model is just as bad. Allowing players to literally pay to win is terrible and goes against what i believe MMO's stand for and shoud be about. Requiring the cash shop as a means to most efficiently clear or even run content is bad. Content is actually built around the need for these shops. These games nickel and dime you around every corner and in the end circumvent what the players believe to be a better deal.
A proper B2P model should be the future, provided it's handled correctly. GW2 was on the right track but slipped up a bit with their shop. Fluff should be the name of the game. Give players a limitless amount of it and they'll be happy. The key is to focus on quality content first, absent of any items available in the shop and leave the shop for purely non combat related items. This is where GW2 slipped up in my eyes. No one cares about town clothes or exp boosts. They want armor skins, weapon skins, housing options, and so on.
The trick is to make everything that's available in the shop also available in game but get rid of the terriblly low RNG factor typically surrounding them. Give players long quest chains to obtain them and they'll do it, but also give them a bonus for acquiring them from said quest and not from the shop. Players with little time can purchase the fluff and players that want to earn them in game can do so with added "bragging rights" so to speak.
Bottom line is, how each model is implemented and handled is more important that the model itself.
Hmm Dren can you give me a source for this number? Kickstart backers have been informed he is not interested in making the next WoW killer and a niche rvr with 30,000 to 40,000 is enough.:)
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
How's this.
BTW, where did I bash the FTP model? I'm not bashing it at all. What I stated in the interview was that I believe that the FTP model won't be as sustainable across the entire industry in 3-5 years because of all the competition. I also said in the same interview and in other posts that FTP is here to stay but not here to stay as "The One Model" that many companies and developers say it is.
As I said years ago at GDC, there is room in this industry for all models and those that think that only one model will not only "win" and stay as the industry model will be proved wrong just as they have every time that the industry and pundits have said so in the past. Do you remember the two cycles of advertising-based gaming? First on the PC and now in the mobile space. How sustainable did that turn out to be? Nothing dominates forever in the gaming space except WoW.
Edit: And just so everyone is perfectly clear, sub-based games are not the one model either, no matter who makes them. Sub-based games will remain where as one of the models in the industry, nothing more than that.
Mark Jacobs
CEO, City State Entertainment
I feel the same way. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that we are currently in the "Dark Ages" of MMORPGs.
I get a sick feeling when I see people saying things like, "I will try it when it goes F2P". When. It's become an assumption that any given game will become F2P.
Granted, I've been playing MMOs since they were all less than $10 a month. The standard $15 a month, that has been the standard for a very long time now, is still extremely cheap.
To quote a decent rapper though, "if I could use these powers for good I wouldn't, not even if I could".
If I could wave a magic wand I can't honestly say I would fix things. I sort of believe that some companies and a great many players need to learn a lesson here. I understand that sounds incredibly arrogant, but I feel that way.
EDIT: Some spelling. I spell gud.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
The most recent crop of sub games that went F2P did so because they weren't great games, and/or were managed improperly.
Example: Tera - Great combat system, but it has very little real content, mobs just repeat with different colorations and maybe a little bling. Pretty much still a non-existant "end game". Poor localization at US launch. Poor management at launch, which convinced a good portion of the playerbase that they were doing a money-grab, by seemingly concentrating more on the cash-shop, than end-game content and fixing bugs.
The model wasn't the problem. The game and associated management was.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
None of those had actual RvR.
RvR requires a minimum of 3 factions. To do it properly, they cannot be "mirrored" factions, either. RvR is persistent. There is no instancing in RvR. Factions cannot speak to each other in RvR. There is no FFA pvp in RvR.
Warhammer, Rift: 2 factions, some instancing.
GW2's WvWvW is 2 week long instanced arenas, with mirrored classes and races.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.