should mmorpgs have monthly fees??!

Hakker

what do you think?

TheWarc

Yes, they need it for server maintenance and Customer support..

doobster

Yes, a game without a monthly fee will be as bad as Guild Wars is.

Tans

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Originally posted by Hakker
what do you think?

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Do you feel like playing a game with absolutely no updates/patches/anything whatsoever?

tu_uilwen

Yes every mmo needs a monthly fee for several reasons

1.) Customer Support
2.) Monthly Updates and content adds
3.) Server maintenace

Mrbloodworth

yes.

Dont for a second think that Guild wars is free.

Joliust

It would be great if servers became extremely cheap to run.  Even then you would still have PtP but it sure would be cheaper .  I remember UO and how cheap that was... the good ol' days.

pyros98

Yes...for the reasons listed above and to help keep some unwanted elements of the community out.

Ferox(SM)

firstly, guild wars isnt even a MMORPG and I have no clue why its even supported on this site.

 

secondly.. yes I have no problem paying for games as long as they dont raise payments to get more profit over all the overhead costs so im paying 30 a month...

Siphons

Yes. Without fee's, your chances of second rate service and all kinds of riff raff in the community raise 10 fold.

Harlee

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Originally posted by Siphons
Yes. Without fee's, your chances of second rate service and all kinds of riff raff in the community raise 10 fold.

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Unless you use SOE.

gargantroo

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Originally posted by Tans
Originally posted by Hakker
what do you think?

Do you feel like playing a game with absolutely no updates/patches/anything whatsoever?

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Diablo 2 has both of the things you just mentioned. Updates and patches. Yay.

Rubycat

it wasnt constant updates though. they were sparce..

n2sooners

You get what you pay for.

Dabutt

quite frankly an MMO without a fee would be basically a RPG, with no playable storyline, constant down time and a lot of annoying people stealing your mobs. we get what we pay for, more stuff to do, server maintenance so all weve worked for doesent go to crap, and costomer service. and dont go bashing SoE. they are still the most sucsesfull company in the field, they dident get there by being bad at what they do.

Sobish

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Originally posted by n2sooners

You get what you pay for.

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Not always...unfortunatly...but for most part i do think the best chance a game is gonna be good ,(updates, customer service )  if game company recieves a fee.   However,  I have payed monthly fees and wasn't any better than some of the free games i played. 

Scorpes

 I would say yes for all the above reasons but also add two more. I have never seen a game with as much racism, bigotry, hostility, hatred and down right immaturity in a game than in Guild Wars. Now this could be for 2 reasons, both being monthly fee related.

#1 With no monthly fee, alot more immature socially inept people will have access to a genre of games that they might usually not have access too. Like getting mommy and daddys credit card. Alot more than usual anyways.

Most pay mmorpg's have a typically "relative term I know" more mature base, because to have a credit card should indicate you have some responsibility in life and need to be mature about it. And yes not everyone who doesnt have a credit card is a loser and not everyone who does have one is mature, but some generalizations hold true.

#2 With no monthly fee, there is not enough customer support to monitor the crowd for these type of people and an extremely poor and slow customer reporting feature makes it a long tedious process for any kind of action.
 

Bennjim

NO

You don't need a monthly fee & monthly fees will have disappeared by 2010 - look to the future. Project Entropia implemented a non-monthly fee revenue model, Roma Victor is to introduce a non-monthly fee revenue model etc etc

The industry is waiting for a new revenue model to succeed, with the increase in MMO games it makes no sense to stick to monthly subs, as you can only afford to play a couple of games at a time. Models such as the one in RV mean you can come back to the game anytime you want, you don't have to pay while you're on holiday and if they're model is to be believed you can even play for free, forever!!!!!

Benny....................................

sleepyguyftl

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Originally posted by Tans
Originally posted by Hakker
what do you think?

Do you feel like playing a game with absolutely no updates/patches/anything whatsoever?

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Resist the urge to make a Ryzom joke.... Resist the urge to make a Ryzom joke....

AJIce

Many of you have listed noble accounts of why MMORPGs should be pay by the month, and I am sure many game-making companies would agree, the fact of the matter is they won't be for long.  Bennjim hit it right on the nail.  With the ever increasing number of MMORPGs out there, each game wants to seperate itself from the pack.  For example, many know the name of Guild Wars.  Monetary requirements is one.  Secondly, these "immature and scandalous" players are becoming an ever increasing percent of the gaming population.  You can blame new technology for that.  Finally, as a side note, it is my belief that with this monetary change, structural change will also occur with in future games.  I believe they will become more PVP based than the "endless mining or mob hunting" we see today.  This provides near constant, ever changing, and plain out fun environments for gamers.  With this new herd of players, comes less who will be satisfied with the "endless mining or mob hunting," and more with the instant gratification of destroying a REAL LIVE player.  In fact, I could argue that this goal is one in which all MMORPG gamers hold.  Few would say that they play the game to get the "mystic sword" at level one million for the sake of personal satisfaction.  For many, it is for bragging rights, PVP, or both.  Therefore, mark my words, you will see less monthly fee and less story line focused games.  Welcome the new era of "nearly" free, PVP based games. 

_myko

wow, so much GW hate

There have so far been 8 patches/updates for GW, and bugs tend to get patched very quickly. The advantage of GW is that due to it's design is it very easy to propagate changes in the game world without downtime (patches just require a restart, at your own leisure). I haven't needed customer support, so i can't comment on how successful it is.

As for the community, I don't see the problems others list when I'm playing. It might be because I'm on the European servers (I've got to say that the majority of PvP racism and jibes come from American teams). It is incredibly easy to block it all out by closing local chat. These forums show that MMORPG's that require a credit card have their fair share of idiots (see WoW fanbois that flame every other game f.ex)

So I don't believe all MMORPG's should have monthly fees, though certain MMORPG elements must be sacrificed to lower or eliminate the fee. Whether these trade offs are worth it is down to each individual consumer, not anyone else.

Groucho

AJIce is making a common logical fallacy I see a lot on this forum: transference of his own personal tastes to the "majority."

AJIce

Really, stop using your thesaurus.    Secondly, I am telling what I believe will happen, and, from the most recent and prominent signs, it appears it will come true.  As stated before, the constant need to seperate from the pack and access more users will become an ever increasing dilema.  Speak to me in a couple of years or less.

sleepyguyftl

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Originally posted by AJIce
Many of you have listed noble accounts of why MMORPGs should be pay by the month, and I am sure many game-making companies would agree, the fact of the matter is they won't be for long. Bennjim hit it right on the nail. With the ever increasing number of MMORPGs out there, each game wants to seperate itself from the pack. For example, many know the name of Guild Wars. Monetary requirements is one. Secondly, these "immature and scandalous" players are becoming an ever increasing percent of the gaming population. You can blame new technology for that. Finally, as a side note, it is my belief that with this monetary change, structural change will also occur with in future games. I believe they will become more PVP based than the "endless mining or mob hunting" we see today. This provides near constant, ever changing, and plain out fun environments for gamers. With this new herd of players, comes less who will be satisfied with the "endless mining or mob hunting," and more with the instant gratification of destroying a REAL LIVE player. In fact, I could argue that this goal is one in which all MMORPG gamers hold. Few would say that they play the game to get the "mystic sword" at level one million for the sake of personal satisfaction. For many, it is for bragging rights, PVP, or both. Therefore, mark my words, you will see less monthly fee and less story line focused games. Welcome the new era of "nearly" free, PVP based games.

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Guild Wars comes out and is successful, suddenly the entire mmo genre is going to dump all exsisting ideas and copy it. I think you are wrong. I do think there will be a shift from monthly fees to charging for particular services. Shot Online is an example of that. You can play the game at the basic level for free, but if you have to play for equipment and greens fees.

I also think there will be an explosion of companies offering the player the ability to create content. They will offer the tools but charge you for hosting them. Or they might possibly charge you to buy the 3d models for your game world.

Of course that doesn't mean games that charge a monthly fee are going away. There will always be a market for that. As long as companies deliver, players will be happy to pay per month.

Gideon

Yea they will always need a monthly fee, but I think they should just charge a little less money. at most 10$ a month would be nice.

Johnark

Without a monthly fee, companies would bust their bandwidth limits and lose more money than gain.  Guild Wars doesn't bust their bandwidth limits cause 95% of the game doesn't need to handle more than just 5 people at once in the same location.  When you enter a town, the only bandwidth that it needs is chatting and giving out the location of each player on the map!  There's no damage, no dueling, there's no bandwidth-heavy data that needs to be sent to one another, so that's why they can manage.

Guild Wars was a fun game, but I didn't feel like I was playing in a virtual world.  I was playing a game and that's it.  MMORPGs, it's a game, but I feel like I'm inside a virtual world, where I have freedom to explore where I want without any interuptions.

That's why I consider Everquest 2 pure crap.  It's like Guild Wars, except when you entire an instance, anyone else can join until the instance is full and creates another empty one.  I felt like I was wasting 15$ a month for this kind of gameplay when Guild Wars was free and offers the same style... AND BETTER since I can garanty myself to always be solo.  EQ2 the farmers will get in my way!