Where did I imply anything of the sort? A sub buys you time. Erego, developers need you to play as long as possible to make as much money as possible. XP pots and convenience items expedite the player's consuming of content. The goals of the offered product are inherently different. Nothing about a sub, originally, sped up your progression through content or allowed you to bypass content altogether.
Providing such XP/convenience items and attempting to keep players playing as long as possible is the fool's errand. Since one monetization strategy is rooted in shortening the gameplay experience, while the other is interested in lengthening it, the latter is inherently a better fit for what is essentially an activity taken SOLELY to spend time enjoying one's self.
EDIT- mobile site could still use some work reference quotes.
I do agree to an extent, but I think the order is wrong. Before subscriptions publishers just sold games right? Then the mmo came along and they started charging a monthly fee for it with the justification being server and bandwidth costs being astronomical, but those fees never went away when those costs became negligible. They kept charging with the excuse being that it funded content dev and the next xpac, but then they charged for that because, more money.
The entire reason grind was put in was to keep people subscribing for the minimum amount of content effort possible.
Monetization has driven design development since day one year zero. I do agree that in many cases it has become ludicrous and detracts.
It's my opinion or feeling that the only one that I ever felt okay with was just an outright B2P purchase before the internet introduced the idea of ongoing fees and micro-fees.
No the order is still wrong. Before stand-alone MMOs, services like AOL, Compuserve and Genie were charging connectivity fees by the hour not just to play games online but simply to chat.
That was the pre-widespread-internet environment the early MMOs launched in and by comparison, they were a fabulous deal at only $15 month.
You were simply paying for a monthly service because you wanted to be there and play that game and most people didn't have the modern day expectations of continued regularly updated new content you're projecting backwards into them.
What people were paying for was the ability to play online with others....period. I didn't play DAoC expecting new content or epic loot as my motivation for playing and keeping my sub active. I played it because I enjoyed the time I spent playing it as it was.
The fiction is imposing modern benefit cost analysis, given what gaming has now become, on gaming retroactively to why we played the way we played back then. We did not need regular new content nor did we need extra grind to chase the phat loot: we simply played what the game had to offer because playing online with others who shared our interest was fun.
You sound to me like someone who came in late to the genre after all the fucktards with their MBAs had started to pervert them to squeeze the nerds for more cash - something that coincided with WOW's release and the larger audiences that came to play MMOs at that time. Yes they are that way now, but they weren't always.
That was the start of commercial internet. Before that the internet was BBSs and usenet/newsgroups.
Those early services charged fees, like I said, because servers and bandwidth were expensive. Prodigy, Sierra Online, AoL, and such were sort of a pre-cursor to mmos in a lot of ways. The gamification wasn't the same obviously but the structure was including those fees.
Yes, we did play for those reasons... for the first few months until we'd been there and done that and people stopped paying the monthly fees. That's when the monetization machine really started kicking in. The fiction is rewriting the road we've traveled to get here and ignoring the foundational flaws that have plagued us since the beginning.
You sound like someone who thinks very highly of their own opinion and talks like those opinions are facts. In your mad dash to try and be relevant did you make it nasty and personal because you're insecure, because you didn't have a real point, or both?
Well I'm not the one bending logic to try to say that the games were always corrupt. That's you. What personal failings prompt you to do that, I have no idea nor do I care to speculate.
The non revisionist history is that the obvious extra grinds and all the other transparent nickle and diming catering to the easily bored are relatively new additions that only became a thing when MMOS became big business.
Some people do still play chess the same way it has been played for hundreds of years without a need for seasons, loot or artificial enticements.
Yet whenever a topic in these forums by those who clearly love MMOs comes up to criticize modern monetization of MMOs you and a handful of others are always quick to try to equate the modern corruption of the game play to what you like to characterize as time corruption in the early days. Even to the extent of liking inane comments about gambling with time instead of money.
As to making it nasty and personal... that's rich coming from you with your current anti-slapshot vendetta.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
My wife made this comment back in 2009 right before we got married. She commented on how instead of paying for a game in the store, now I was paying each month to play a game and pay for little things I want in game. She said its like your playing in a casino under the influence of all their little traps. I chuckled and realized the more I thought about, the more I realized how right she was. I do absolutely agree with this assessment and I do find myself spending money on games I enjoy. I am not a whale by any stretch but I spend money on subs and the occasional vanity item.
There is one big difference. In many games, you can play without spending a dime. Try that in a casino.
There are no entrance fees to casinos either. If you want "casino loot" you have to pay.
My wife made this comment back in 2009 right before we got married. She commented on how instead of paying for a game in the store, now I was paying each month to play a game and pay for little things I want in game. She said its like your playing in a casino under the influence of all their little traps. I chuckled and realized the more I thought about, the more I realized how right she was. I do absolutely agree with this assessment and I do find myself spending money on games I enjoy. I am not a whale by any stretch but I spend money on subs and the occasional vanity item.
There is one big difference. In many games, you can play without spending a dime. Try that in a casino.
There are no entrance fees to casinos either. If you want "casino loot" you have to pay.
In the good ole days, they used to feed you full of free liquor as well
I was there as well because i was playing some foreign mmorpgs as well as the EQ series. I should make note because it is deserved that still to this day Square Enix has never introduced cash shop to FFXI.
I was there when SOE sent out questionnaires asking about cash shops.Then Smedley told us he would have both no matter what.Then word leaked out that he was making so much money from the cash shop servers that he was thinking of converting all servers to rmt.His team was watching it so closely he even commented on what area was spending the most,i believe it was California.
Then he did it ,went against his word and converted all servers to rmt servers.Then more gimmicks rolled in,promises of one price gets access to all games but then began closing games down ...lmao. Fast forward,DB or was it still SOE tried to reopen vanilla servers with controlled content adding.That became a shit show and lasted about 2-3 months.Overall a VERY lazy way to improve a game,your not doing anything at all.
MANY people scoffed at RMT,rightfully so and claimed that once you let it in the door it would only get worse and man oh man were they 100% correct.So now only the fact the market is flooded is forcing the hand of some to one up their f2p offers. So in comes the NEW gimmick,crowd funding,make unrealistic promises banking on enough idiots to believe anything marketed to them.Marketing isn't a million/billion dollar industry because people make wise decisions,nope many people are easily influenced with deception and lies.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
My wife made this comment back in 2009 right before we got married. She commented on how instead of paying for a game in the store, now I was paying each month to play a game and pay for little things I want in game. She said its like your playing in a casino under the influence of all their little traps. I chuckled and realized the more I thought about, the more I realized how right she was. I do absolutely agree with this assessment and I do find myself spending money on games I enjoy. I am not a whale by any stretch but I spend money on subs and the occasional vanity item.
There is one big difference. In many games, you can play without spending a dime. Try that in a casino.
There are no entrance fees to casinos either. If you want "casino loot" you have to pay.
In the good ole days, they used to feed you full of free liquor as well
My wife made this comment back in 2009 right before we got married. She commented on how instead of paying for a game in the store, now I was paying each month to play a game and pay for little things I want in game. She said its like your playing in a casino under the influence of all their little traps. I chuckled and realized the more I thought about, the more I realized how right she was. I do absolutely agree with this assessment and I do find myself spending money on games I enjoy. I am not a whale by any stretch but I spend money on subs and the occasional vanity item.
There is one big difference. In many games, you can play without spending a dime. Try that in a casino.
There are no entrance fees to casinos either. If you want "casino loot" you have to pay.
In the good ole days, they used to feed you full of free liquor as well
Still do, in the SE part of the U.S.
Before we had kids my wife and I were fully comped when we visited Atlantic City. We had our own host assigned and they would always try to get us to come play by giving us free suites, comped restaurants, show tickets and even just cash... Been about 15 years since we went so that may have changed but they sure did try to lure you in...
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
My wife made this comment back in 2009 right before we got married. She commented on how instead of paying for a game in the store, now I was paying each month to play a game and pay for little things I want in game. She said its like your playing in a casino under the influence of all their little traps. I chuckled and realized the more I thought about, the more I realized how right she was. I do absolutely agree with this assessment and I do find myself spending money on games I enjoy. I am not a whale by any stretch but I spend money on subs and the occasional vanity item.
There is one big difference. In many games, you can play without spending a dime. Try that in a casino.
There are no entrance fees to casinos either. If you want "casino loot" you have to pay.
No .. but you can't do a thing but look, as opposed to you can play most games till the end without paying.
Go Pantheon. No cash shop, no RNG. Pay a sub and be done with it. Till then I am playing P99. The new MMOs are not winning any of my money. SWToR lost me with their new RNG system. I backed Ashes, Steve seems to be big on no P2W and returning to the sub model. I am burnt out on new MMOs and their many ways they ding you to death.
They're all built on RNG.
True as well Torval, but where the taxes lay makes a huge difference. We realize that RNG in loot tables is a thing because, in a game where a mob dropped the same loot every time, it would destroy the viability of a large amount of progression systems in the game itself.
Removing RNG boxes from these F2P games has no such effect on any other portion of said game. It plays the same. They're superfluous to the game experience; as you said earlier in the thread, they only serve to intrude and pull you from the experience itself. This is precisely why so many feel such distaste at publishers choosing to tax RNG at that level. It's quite apparent these RNG systems are wholly separate from the game experience and, as such, detract from it.
It's the direct and deliberate "taxation" of the roll of the die that sparks so much discord among fans of the genre. RNG is the holy grail of modern RPGs; it underlies all of the core systems that comprise most RPGs. As such, pimping it out for nickles and dimes is disgusting.
Where did I imply anything of the sort? A sub buys you time. Erego, developers need you to play as long as possible to make as much money as possible. XP pots and convenience items expedite the player's consuming of content. The goals of the offered product are inherently different. Nothing about a sub, originally, sped up your progression through content or allowed you to bypass content altogether.
Providing such XP/convenience items and attempting to keep players playing as long as possible is the fool's errand. Since one monetization strategy is rooted in shortening the gameplay experience, while the other is interested in lengthening it, the latter is inherently a better fit for what is essentially an activity taken SOLELY to spend time enjoying one's self.
EDIT- mobile site could still use some work reference quotes.
I do agree to an extent, but I think the order is wrong. Before subscriptions publishers just sold games right? Then the mmo came along and they started charging a monthly fee for it with the justification being server and bandwidth costs being astronomical, but those fees never went away when those costs became negligible. They kept charging with the excuse being that it funded content dev and the next xpac, but then they charged for that because, more money.
The entire reason grind was put in was to keep people subscribing for the minimum amount of content effort possible.
Monetization has driven design development since day one year zero. I do agree that in many cases it has become ludicrous and detracts.
It's my opinion or feeling that the only one that I ever felt okay with was just an outright B2P purchase before the internet introduced the idea of ongoing fees and micro-fees.
No the order is still wrong. Before stand-alone MMOs, services like AOL, Compuserve and Genie were charging connectivity fees by the hour not just to play games online but simply to chat.
That was the pre-widespread-internet environment the early MMOs launched in and by comparison, they were a fabulous deal at only $15 month.
You were simply paying for a monthly service because you wanted to be there and play that game and most people didn't have the modern day expectations of continued regularly updated new content you're projecting backwards into them.
What people were paying for was the ability to play online with others....period. I didn't play DAoC expecting new content or epic loot as my motivation for playing and keeping my sub active. I played it because I enjoyed the time I spent playing it as it was.
The fiction is imposing modern benefit cost analysis, given what gaming has now become, on gaming retroactively to why we played the way we played back then. We did not need regular new content nor did we need extra grind to chase the phat loot: we simply played what the game had to offer because playing online with others who shared our interest was fun.
You sound to me like someone who came in late to the genre after all the fucktards with their MBAs had started to pervert them to squeeze the nerds for more cash - something that coincided with WOW's release and the larger audiences that came to play MMOs at that time. Yes they are that way now, but they weren't always.
That was the start of commercial internet. Before that the internet was BBSs and usenet/newsgroups.
Those early services charged fees, like I said, because servers and bandwidth were expensive. Prodigy, Sierra Online, AoL, and such were sort of a pre-cursor to mmos in a lot of ways. The gamification wasn't the same obviously but the structure was including those fees.
Yes, we did play for those reasons... for the first few months until we'd been there and done that and people stopped paying the monthly fees. That's when the monetization machine really started kicking in. The fiction is rewriting the road we've traveled to get here and ignoring the foundational flaws that have plagued us since the beginning.
You sound like someone who thinks very highly of their own opinion and talks like those opinions are facts. In your mad dash to try and be relevant did you make it nasty and personal because you're insecure, because you didn't have a real point, or both?
Well I'm not the one bending logic to try to say that the games were always corrupt. That's you. What personal failings prompt you to do that, I have no idea nor do I care to speculate.
The non revisionist history is that the obvious extra grinds and all the other transparent nickle and diming catering to the easily bored are relatively new additions that only became a thing when MMOS became big business.
Some people do still play chess the same way it has been played for hundreds of years without a need for seasons, loot or artificial enticements.
Yet whenever a topic in these forums by those who clearly love MMOs comes up to criticize modern monetization of MMOs you and a handful of others are always quick to try to equate the modern corruption of the game play to what you like to characterize as time corruption in the early days. Even to the extent of liking inane comments about gambling with time instead of money.
As to making it nasty and personal... that's rich coming from you with your current anti-slapshot vendetta.
Not referring to any particular post but it's very nice and easy to see the self-justification defense mechanism kick in when you read certain posts. I always try to weigh that in my responses. On the plus side, discussion is a good thing and if we all had the same opinions this would be a dull (and empty) place.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
My wife made this comment back in 2009 right before we got married. She commented on how instead of paying for a game in the store, now I was paying each month to play a game and pay for little things I want in game. She said its like your playing in a casino under the influence of all their little traps. I chuckled and realized the more I thought about, the more I realized how right she was. I do absolutely agree with this assessment and I do find myself spending money on games I enjoy. I am not a whale by any stretch but I spend money on subs and the occasional vanity item.
There is one big difference. In many games, you can play without spending a dime. Try that in a casino.
There are no entrance fees to casinos either. If you want "casino loot" you have to pay.
In the good ole days, they used to feed you full of free liquor as well
Still do, in the SE part of the U.S.
Before we had kids my wife and I were fully comped when we visited Atlantic City. We had our own host assigned and they would always try to get us to come play by giving us free suites, comped restaurants, show tickets and even just cash... Been about 15 years since we went so that may have changed but they sure did try to lure you in...
It's much the same still; during my stint in the AF down in Florida, a Staff Sgt (who also happened to be my direct supervisor at the time) used to get weekend suites comped in nearby Biloxi, so I'd ride out with him some weekends. Come down from the suite, walk onto the floor, some cocktail waitress comes by to immediately offer you a beverage... No tab needed! They'll get that at the table. Were you about to leave to get dinner? No need! Here's a voucher for a free meal at our fine casino restaurant. And, how convenient, it's approximately 6 full feet from where you're currently sitting, losing all your moneys at the craps table!
Go Pantheon. No cash shop, no RNG. Pay a sub and be done with it. Till then I am playing P99. The new MMOs are not winning any of my money. SWToR lost me with their new RNG system. I backed Ashes, Steve seems to be big on no P2W and returning to the sub model. I am burnt out on new MMOs and their many ways they ding you to death.
They're all built on RNG.
True as well Torval, but where the taxes lay makes a huge difference. We realize that RNG in loot tables is a thing because, in a game where a mob dropped the same loot every time, it would destroy the viability of a large amount of progression systems in the game itself.
Removing RNG boxes from these F2P games has no such effect on any other portion of said game. It plays the same. They're superfluous to the game experience; as you said earlier in the thread, they only serve to intrude and pull you from the experience itself. This is precisely why so many feel such distaste at publishers choosing to tax RNG at that level. It's quite apparent these RNG systems are wholly separate from the game experience and, as such, detract from it.
It's the direct and deliberate "taxation" of the roll of the die that sparks so much discord among fans of the genre. RNG is the holy grail of modern RPGs; it underlies all of the core systems that comprise most RPGs. As such, pimping it out for nickles and dimes is disgusting.
Yeah, but we can't get there when we're still at "no RNG". That's where Nan started which is why I disagreed with him on that.
I agree in that in reference to immersion and suspension of disbelief they're horrible. MMOs aren't really great for immersion in the first place as the massively part typically blows that out of the water first, but I agree loot crates suck for that.
Removing loot crates would affect game development. It's a revenue stream. We're cutting that off. What is the studio and publisher going to replace that with? How?
Going back to our previous talk, I would like to explore an experience where the focus is on providing a more fluidly evolving experience. Employee led events, with an MMORPG designed with this fluid evolution in mind. Again, I'm not sure how feasible it is, because I don't know where an MMORPG built from the ground up to provide a toolset specifically for GMing among thousands of players exists. It would certainly require some coordinated efforts on the part of the developers. But the possibility of always truly logging in to a world that lives on, constantly evolving in response to spontaneous, GM created events and the results of players interacting with those events, would certainly make me willing to spend again on a monthly sub.
My wife made this comment back in 2009 right before we got married. She commented on how instead of paying for a game in the store, now I was paying each month to play a game and pay for little things I want in game. She said its like your playing in a casino under the influence of all their little traps. I chuckled and realized the more I thought about, the more I realized how right she was. I do absolutely agree with this assessment and I do find myself spending money on games I enjoy. I am not a whale by any stretch but I spend money on subs and the occasional vanity item.
There is one big difference. In many games, you can play without spending a dime. Try that in a casino.
There are no entrance fees to casinos either. If you want "casino loot" you have to pay.
No .. but you can't do a thing but look, as opposed to you can play most games till the end without paying.
Don't tell me that is not a big difference.
It depends on the game, most of the games that come out of the east are casinos and you really cannot play the game without RNG purchases. Sure some parts of the game are open to the free players, but there is also a large portion unavailable to you. It really depends on what the RNG purchases contain. Unfortunately most of these games put needed gameplay items in them.
Go Pantheon. No cash shop, no RNG. Pay a sub and be done with it. Till then I am playing P99. The new MMOs are not winning any of my money. SWToR lost me with their new RNG system. I backed Ashes, Steve seems to be big on no P2W and returning to the sub model. I am burnt out on new MMOs and their many ways they ding you to death.
They're all built on RNG.
True as well Torval, but where the taxes lay makes a huge difference. We realize that RNG in loot tables is a thing because, in a game where a mob dropped the same loot every time, it would destroy the viability of a large amount of progression systems in the game itself.
Removing RNG boxes from these F2P games has no such effect on any other portion of said game. It plays the same. They're superfluous to the game experience; as you said earlier in the thread, they only serve to intrude and pull you from the experience itself. This is precisely why so many feel such distaste at publishers choosing to tax RNG at that level. It's quite apparent these RNG systems are wholly separate from the game experience and, as such, detract from it.
It's the direct and deliberate "taxation" of the roll of the die that sparks so much discord among fans of the genre. RNG is the holy grail of modern RPGs; it underlies all of the core systems that comprise most RPGs. As such, pimping it out for nickles and dimes is disgusting.
Yeah, but we can't get there when we're still at "no RNG". That's where Nan started which is why I disagreed with him on that.
I agree in that in reference to immersion and suspension of disbelief they're horrible. MMOs aren't really great for immersion in the first place as the massively part typically blows that out of the water first, but I agree loot crates suck for that.
Removing loot crates would affect game development. It's a revenue stream. We're cutting that off. What is the studio and publisher going to replace that with? How?
I'd have to see the numbers to have an opinion on that.
I'm an employer and I employ 32 people. My pay scale ranges from 34k a year to around 75k a year with a couple in the six figures, plus payroll taxes, plus benefits. Almost everything I make requires raw materials and consumables. I've invested and reinvested millions in machinery to maintain competitiveness. My yearly sales are a pittance of what these MMO companies are pulling in and I do very very well. In a good year I can pull in seven figures after the taxman has taken his share.
I bet it's a hell of a lot more lucrative than my business.
Go Pantheon. No cash shop, no RNG. Pay a sub and be done with it. Till then I am playing P99. The new MMOs are not winning any of my money. SWToR lost me with their new RNG system. I backed Ashes, Steve seems to be big on no P2W and returning to the sub model. I am burnt out on new MMOs and their many ways they ding you to death.
They're all built on RNG.
True as well Torval, but where the taxes lay makes a huge difference. We realize that RNG in loot tables is a thing because, in a game where a mob dropped the same loot every time, it would destroy the viability of a large amount of progression systems in the game itself.
Removing RNG boxes from these F2P games has no such effect on any other portion of said game. It plays the same. They're superfluous to the game experience; as you said earlier in the thread, they only serve to intrude and pull you from the experience itself. This is precisely why so many feel such distaste at publishers choosing to tax RNG at that level. It's quite apparent these RNG systems are wholly separate from the game experience and, as such, detract from it.
It's the direct and deliberate "taxation" of the roll of the die that sparks so much discord among fans of the genre. RNG is the holy grail of modern RPGs; it underlies all of the core systems that comprise most RPGs. As such, pimping it out for nickles and dimes is disgusting.
Yeah, but we can't get there when we're still at "no RNG". That's where Nan started which is why I disagreed with him on that.
I agree in that in reference to immersion and suspension of disbelief they're horrible. MMOs aren't really great for immersion in the first place as the massively part typically blows that out of the water first, but I agree loot crates suck for that.
Removing loot crates would affect game development. It's a revenue stream. We're cutting that off. What is the studio and publisher going to replace that with? How?
I'd have to see the numbers to have an opinion on that.
I'm an employer and I employ 32 people. My pay scale ranges from 34k a year to around 75k a year with a couple in the six figures, plus payroll taxes, plus benefits. Almost everything I make requires raw materials and consumables. I've invested and reinvested millions in machinery to maintain competitiveness. My yearly sales are a pittance of what these MMO companies are pulling in and I do very very well. In a good year I can pull in seven figures after the taxman has taken his share.
I bet it's a hell of a lot more lucrative than my business.
This issue seems to be, in my opinion, the largest reason for moving towards microtransactions.
Once you've created a digital asset, duplicating it is essentially free, but you get to continue charging as if there were additional material and labor costs involved with duplicating the item. It's ingenious, but it screws the consumer and creates a large crutch for otherwise mediocre games to stay afloat, as they can coast off of work already done while charging as if they had to come in every day and put in 8 hours just to meet inventory demand.
I ignore the boxes and delete them. PWE is the worse with boxes. In a one hour play of any of their games their boxes stack and i had 20 boxes drop that i deleted. The secret world legends is becoming second place with the boxes dropping.
Go Pantheon. No cash shop, no RNG. Pay a sub and be done with it. Till then I am playing P99. The new MMOs are not winning any of my money. SWToR lost me with their new RNG system. I backed Ashes, Steve seems to be big on no P2W and returning to the sub model. I am burnt out on new MMOs and their many ways they ding you to death.
They're all built on RNG.
True as well Torval, but where the taxes lay makes a huge difference. We realize that RNG in loot tables is a thing because, in a game where a mob dropped the same loot every time, it would destroy the viability of a large amount of progression systems in the game itself.
Removing RNG boxes from these F2P games has no such effect on any other portion of said game. It plays the same. They're superfluous to the game experience; as you said earlier in the thread, they only serve to intrude and pull you from the experience itself. This is precisely why so many feel such distaste at publishers choosing to tax RNG at that level. It's quite apparent these RNG systems are wholly separate from the game experience and, as such, detract from it.
It's the direct and deliberate "taxation" of the roll of the die that sparks so much discord among fans of the genre. RNG is the holy grail of modern RPGs; it underlies all of the core systems that comprise most RPGs. As such, pimping it out for nickles and dimes is disgusting.
Yeah, but we can't get there when we're still at "no RNG". That's where Nan started which is why I disagreed with him on that.
I agree in that in reference to immersion and suspension of disbelief they're horrible. MMOs aren't really great for immersion in the first place as the massively part typically blows that out of the water first, but I agree loot crates suck for that.
Removing loot crates would affect game development. It's a revenue stream. We're cutting that off. What is the studio and publisher going to replace that with? How?
Going back to our previous talk, I would like to explore an experience where the focus is on providing a more fluidly evolving experience. Employee led events, with an MMORPG designed with this fluid evolution in mind. Again, I'm not sure how feasible it is, because I don't know where an MMORPG built from the ground up to provide a toolset specifically for GMing among thousands of players exists. It would certainly require some coordinated efforts on the part of the developers. But the possibility of always truly logging in to a world that lives on, constantly evolving in response to spontaneous, GM created events and the results of players interacting with those events, would certainly make me willing to spend again on a monthly sub.
I'd like to see more GM side interaction. EQ2 still has guides and does events, just not on the scale that it once was. There was this great event (themed around the void) to launch an update. Much of it was scripted in place, but GMs ran mini events within this. It was awesome.
In a game with a mandatory subscription this should be the minimum acceptable norm.
I like what Elite Dangerous is doing in regard to community interaction and the thing is you dont need to be an MMO to do it, but you do need to be able to collect data
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Go Pantheon. No cash shop, no RNG. Pay a sub and be done with it. Till then I am playing P99. The new MMOs are not winning any of my money. SWToR lost me with their new RNG system. I backed Ashes, Steve seems to be big on no P2W and returning to the sub model. I am burnt out on new MMOs and their many ways they ding you to death.
They're all built on RNG.
True as well Torval, but where the taxes lay makes a huge difference. We realize that RNG in loot tables is a thing because, in a game where a mob dropped the same loot every time, it would destroy the viability of a large amount of progression systems in the game itself.
Removing RNG boxes from these F2P games has no such effect on any other portion of said game. It plays the same. They're superfluous to the game experience; as you said earlier in the thread, they only serve to intrude and pull you from the experience itself. This is precisely why so many feel such distaste at publishers choosing to tax RNG at that level. It's quite apparent these RNG systems are wholly separate from the game experience and, as such, detract from it.
It's the direct and deliberate "taxation" of the roll of the die that sparks so much discord among fans of the genre. RNG is the holy grail of modern RPGs; it underlies all of the core systems that comprise most RPGs. As such, pimping it out for nickles and dimes is disgusting.
Yeah, but we can't get there when we're still at "no RNG". That's where Nan started which is why I disagreed with him on that.
I agree in that in reference to immersion and suspension of disbelief they're horrible. MMOs aren't really great for immersion in the first place as the massively part typically blows that out of the water first, but I agree loot crates suck for that.
Removing loot crates would affect game development. It's a revenue stream. We're cutting that off. What is the studio and publisher going to replace that with? How?
Going back to our previous talk, I would like to explore an experience where the focus is on providing a more fluidly evolving experience. Employee led events, with an MMORPG designed with this fluid evolution in mind. Again, I'm not sure how feasible it is, because I don't know where an MMORPG built from the ground up to provide a toolset specifically for GMing among thousands of players exists. It would certainly require some coordinated efforts on the part of the developers. But the possibility of always truly logging in to a world that lives on, constantly evolving in response to spontaneous, GM created events and the results of players interacting with those events, would certainly make me willing to spend again on a monthly sub.
I'd like to see more GM side interaction. EQ2 still has guides and does events, just not on the scale that it once was. There was this great event (themed around the void) to launch an update. Much of it was scripted in place, but GMs ran mini events within this. It was awesome.
In a game with a mandatory subscription this should be the minimum acceptable norm.
I like what Elite Dangerous is doing in regard to community interaction and the thing is you dont need to be an MMO to do it, but you do need to be able to collect data
Gambling makes a lot of money on the web. I guess with the benefit of hindsight the move towards this is not surprising.
I don't mind the RNG boxes so much in principle, but what gets me is just the sheer greed of some companies, Nexon, Kakao etc. It's abused and should be regulated. The box odds in some games are disgusting.
I ask myself why I keep playing them, and the answer is there are still just not enough AAA MMORPG's around to keep my rotation 100% up. So I do fall back to the greedy ones.
Go Pantheon. No cash shop, no RNG. Pay a sub and be done with it. Till then I am playing P99. The new MMOs are not winning any of my money. SWToR lost me with their new RNG system. I backed Ashes, Steve seems to be big on no P2W and returning to the sub model. I am burnt out on new MMOs and their many ways they ding you to death.
They're all built on RNG.
True as well Torval, but where the taxes lay makes a huge difference. We realize that RNG in loot tables is a thing because, in a game where a mob dropped the same loot every time, it would destroy the viability of a large amount of progression systems in the game itself.
Removing RNG boxes from these F2P games has no such effect on any other portion of said game. It plays the same. They're superfluous to the game experience; as you said earlier in the thread, they only serve to intrude and pull you from the experience itself. This is precisely why so many feel such distaste at publishers choosing to tax RNG at that level. It's quite apparent these RNG systems are wholly separate from the game experience and, as such, detract from it.
It's the direct and deliberate "taxation" of the roll of the die that sparks so much discord among fans of the genre. RNG is the holy grail of modern RPGs; it underlies all of the core systems that comprise most RPGs. As such, pimping it out for nickles and dimes is disgusting.
Yeah, but we can't get there when we're still at "no RNG". That's where Nan started which is why I disagreed with him on that.
I agree in that in reference to immersion and suspension of disbelief they're horrible. MMOs aren't really great for immersion in the first place as the massively part typically blows that out of the water first, but I agree loot crates suck for that.
Removing loot crates would affect game development. It's a revenue stream. We're cutting that off. What is the studio and publisher going to replace that with? How?
I'd have to see the numbers to have an opinion on that.
I'm an employer and I employ 32 people. My pay scale ranges from 34k a year to around 75k a year with a couple in the six figures, plus payroll taxes, plus benefits. Almost everything I make requires raw materials and consumables. I've invested and reinvested millions in machinery to maintain competitiveness. My yearly sales are a pittance of what these MMO companies are pulling in and I do very very well. In a good year I can pull in seven figures after the taxman has taken his share.
I bet it's a hell of a lot more lucrative than my business.
What are you saying, that if you remove a revenue stream the revenue goes down? Logic and the ever popular Occam support this.
If loot crates were a revenue drain they would be stopped. If they generated no additional revenue they would be removed because it's a dead weight system and those are unhealthy long term. If loot crates detracted from other sales sources more than they brought in, or if their removal would generate more revenue with other streams then it would happen. So the most obvious and logical conclusion would be that they are a significant revenue stream and therefore the removal would affect the company and development of the game.
If the studio and publisher see that as a significant income stream what should its removal be replaced with? If you had to remove one of your significant revenue streams what would you do to adjust for that?
They could be more lucrative than your business, or not. We would need actual numbers and risk assessments to know for sure.
Profits for my business at the end of the day usually average out between about 12%-15% of sales.
What I am saying... is that there are respectable profits and there are obscene profits. I'm curious whether these loot boxes and there ilk fall into the obscene category, I have my suspicions.
When too much of a societies wealth goes into too few hands... well it's doesn't end up good for anyone.
It depends on the game, most of the games that come out of the east are casinos and you really cannot play the game without RNG purchases. Sure some parts of the game are open to the free players, but there is also a large portion unavailable to you. It really depends on what the RNG purchases contain. Unfortunately most of these games put needed gameplay items in them.
So in reality, not a big difference at all.
In that case, we have to talk about specific games.
Two that i play, marvel heroes & planetside 2, are totally free, without the need for any RNG purchase to enjoy (for me at least). I heard that PoE is the same.
It depends on the game, most of the games that come out of the east are casinos and you really cannot play the game without RNG purchases. Sure some parts of the game are open to the free players, but there is also a large portion unavailable to you. It really depends on what the RNG purchases contain. Unfortunately most of these games put needed gameplay items in them.
So in reality, not a big difference at all.
In that case, we have to talk about specific games.
Two that i play, marvel heroes & planetside 2, are totally free, without the need for any RNG purchase to enjoy (for me at least). I heard that PoE is the same.
Comments
The non revisionist history is that the obvious extra grinds and all the other transparent nickle and diming catering to the easily bored are relatively new additions that only became a thing when MMOS became big business.
Some people do still play chess the same way it has been played for hundreds of years without a need for seasons, loot or artificial enticements.
Yet whenever a topic in these forums by those who clearly love MMOs comes up to criticize modern monetization of MMOs you and a handful of others are always quick to try to equate the modern corruption of the game play to what you like to characterize as time corruption in the early days. Even to the extent of liking inane comments about gambling with time instead of money.
As to making it nasty and personal... that's rich coming from you with your current anti-slapshot vendetta.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
I should make note because it is deserved that still to this day Square Enix has never introduced cash shop to FFXI.
I was there when SOE sent out questionnaires asking about cash shops.Then Smedley told us he would have both no matter what.Then word leaked out that he was making so much money from the cash shop servers that he was thinking of converting all servers to rmt.His team was watching it so closely he even commented on what area was spending the most,i believe it was California.
Then he did it ,went against his word and converted all servers to rmt servers.Then more gimmicks rolled in,promises of one price gets access to all games but then began closing games down ...lmao.
Fast forward,DB or was it still SOE tried to reopen vanilla servers with controlled content adding.That became a shit show and lasted about 2-3 months.Overall a VERY lazy way to improve a game,your not doing anything at all.
MANY people scoffed at RMT,rightfully so and claimed that once you let it in the door it would only get worse and man oh man were they 100% correct.So now only the fact the market is flooded is forcing the hand of some to one up their f2p offers.
So in comes the NEW gimmick,crowd funding,make unrealistic promises banking on enough idiots to believe anything marketed to them.Marketing isn't a million/billion dollar industry because people make wise decisions,nope many people are easily influenced with deception and lies.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Don't tell me that is not a big difference.
Removing RNG boxes from these F2P games has no such effect on any other portion of said game. It plays the same. They're superfluous to the game experience; as you said earlier in the thread, they only serve to intrude and pull you from the experience itself. This is precisely why so many feel such distaste at publishers choosing to tax RNG at that level. It's quite apparent these RNG systems are wholly separate from the game experience and, as such, detract from it.
It's the direct and deliberate "taxation" of the roll of the die that sparks so much discord among fans of the genre. RNG is the holy grail of modern RPGs; it underlies all of the core systems that comprise most RPGs. As such, pimping it out for nickles and dimes is disgusting.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
If you log in to an MMO and don't gamble you can still play the game.
So, not really like a casino.
~~ postlarval ~~
So in reality, not a big difference at all.
I'm an employer and I employ 32 people. My pay scale ranges from 34k a year to around 75k a year with a couple in the six figures, plus payroll taxes, plus benefits. Almost everything I make requires raw materials and consumables. I've invested and reinvested millions in machinery to maintain competitiveness. My yearly sales are a pittance of what these MMO companies are pulling in and I do very very well. In a good year I can pull in seven figures after the taxman has taken his share.
I bet it's a hell of a lot more lucrative than my business.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Never mind. I don't want to know.
~~ postlarval ~~
never mind I just noticed the banned.
Once you've created a digital asset, duplicating it is essentially free, but you get to continue charging as if there were additional material and labor costs involved with duplicating the item. It's ingenious, but it screws the consumer and creates a large crutch for otherwise mediocre games to stay afloat, as they can coast off of work already done while charging as if they had to come in every day and put in 8 hours just to meet inventory demand.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
I don't mind the RNG boxes so much in principle, but what gets me is just the sheer greed of some companies, Nexon, Kakao etc. It's abused and should be regulated. The box odds in some games are disgusting.
I ask myself why I keep playing them, and the answer is there are still just not enough AAA MMORPG's around to keep my rotation 100% up. So I do fall back to the greedy ones.
What I am saying... is that there are respectable profits and there are obscene profits. I'm curious whether these loot boxes and there ilk fall into the obscene category, I have my suspicions.
When too much of a societies wealth goes into too few hands... well it's doesn't end up good for anyone.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Two that i play, marvel heroes & planetside 2, are totally free, without the need for any RNG purchase to enjoy (for me at least). I heard that PoE is the same.