The Luxury Subscription model

dontadow

The best time I've ever had in an MMO was Circa 2002, when Final Fantasy xi was in Beta. I had no idea at the time that I"d never get an experience like it.  

The thing that made it great was solely because there werne't many people on the server. I can't estimate how many people there were, but it was few enough where when someone roade into town with the big set of armor you knew those guys specifically.  

I often said to myself, I'd pay 50 to  100 bucks a month if i could have that experience again, if there was a game that only allowed a few hundred people on a special server. You also knew that everyone who played the game had a vested interest in the game. 

As I see companies argue about which is better, subscription or freetoplay, I can't help but wonder what people think of a game having the best of bot world, free to play servers and luxury servers.  I think the idea of gaming with a small dedicated group of players who are "hardcore" (who else would pay that much for a game) would be amazing for us folk who just hate rolling the dice of teaming up with JimIrealizedilikegirls13. What would you pay for a luxury server and what would you want included or not included? 

BahamutKaiser

The point of an MMO is to be around massive numbers of ppl, an isolated server basically makes it a normal multiplayer.

People wanna play with friends and f2p is a good avenue for non-invested friends to play.

And its easier to get a few dollars from thousands than hundreds of dollars form dozens.

I do wish server division was more prevalent for players with different interests, MMOs could be modded for different player interests, manual or tab targeting, PvP or role-playing centric.

Subscriptions cost enough as is, there could be subscription only servers or even high subscription servers. But only if their generating money to cover them, running servers for high spenders doesn't mean it will make more or adequate money...

Dihoru

I have a group of 3 friends in World of tanks, 2 pay from time to time, me and another can't yet (neither of us has a source of stable income and both are working towards getting into a master's program).

 

To the OP: The idea is in an ideal world good, in the real world it is crap because you are segregating the population whereas in today's MMOs you'd want as many people as possible on a single shard.

Mkilbride

Camelot Unchained plans to allow people rent their own private servers, with 300 Maximum Capacity.

 

I love FFXI as well. We won't get another like it, I am fraid. Best PvE MMO made to date, possibly ever.

BahamutKaiser

GW the first had way better PvE, wildly better IMO.

free2play

You got me to thinking of some of the Freelancer servers.

 

Dunno why that never made it to MMO.

Buccaneer

I remember back in the day EQ had a premium server which cost more than a normal sub to play on it. I cannot remember the name or the benefits to rolling on that server to be honest.  Anyone able to help out? and was it successful?

Smikis

it was not about low pop servers, it about about community, there was no lfg and all that nonsense , sure servers might held lower amount of people but still it was different , back in vanilla wow , everyone on server knew me even new players would come to know you way before you first meet them in the game, there was no lfg, everything was good old communication and chat, you were there on realm forums, realm irc and all that

similar things still happened with tbc but eventually died out

you didnt knew someone with baddas gear because of low pop server, you knew because pve meant something, and because there were no lfg no crossrealms and no bullshit, you knew those guys because you wanted to play next to them

I know because i was one of those guys everyone wanted to be, walking in fancy armor, enchanting best enchantments, famous and rich

there were only 2 things necessary for those to happen, be skilled/good at the game and have no bullshit crosserver lfg

but noone wants low pop, i still remember all the hassle of keeping 40 man raiding guild, lack of people and another 40 man guilds, each of them struggling for players, sure we were best so we had lowers guilds to leach off, but it was even worse for them

Mkilbride

Originally posted by BahamutKaiser
GW the first had way better PvE, wildly better IMO.

GW1 had great PvE, I know.

 

But unless you played FFXI, and I mean played it more than just a few days and said "meh", then you didn't get into any of the incredible stories.

 

There are no quests that are just...random quests. All the quests tie into the world, are interesting, and have purpose.

dontadow

Originally posted by BahamutKaiser
The point of an MMO is to be around massive numbers of ppl, an isolated server basically makes it a normal multiplayer.

People wanna play with friends and f2p is a good avenue for non-invested friends to play.

And its easier to get a few dollars from thousands than hundreds of dollars form dozens.

I do wish server division was more prevalent for players with different interests, MMOs could be modded for different player interests, manual or tab targeting, PvP or role-playing centric.

Subscriptions cost enough as is, there could be subscription only servers or even high subscription servers. But only if their generating money to cover them, running servers for high spenders doesn't mean it will make more or adequate money...

 There felt like there was more community on that final fantasy server of less than 1,000 folk than i've ever seen in a later mmo and it was solely the server size.  Massive doesn't have a set number. Right now, massive is defined by a stress test server capacity.  With fewer people and a higher cost, you're more likely to get people who are a little more serious with the hobby than most, and thats what i'd love to see. 

moshimo

OP: $50 to $100 is a LOT of money.  Not sure I'd ever spend that much on one game.

DamonVile

Just go play any of the old mmos. You'll be one of a few hundred people playing, and given a bit of time you'll know everyone that rides into town....and it wont cost you $50-100.