Badger
Watcher
- Joined
- October 18, 2006
- Messages
- 36
Hi All
I was surprised the other day to discover the shocked reaction of the locals at an “Xbox 360” forum I’ve been visiting, to the topic of monthly subscriptions for MMORPG’s.
It all came about because the beta for a new game called “Phantasy Star Online” has just become available for download on “Xbox Live”. Having had a look at it myself I was less than impressed;
Here’s an exert;
“But having now completed both its tutorials I found that its cheery chirpy translations were making my teeth grind and the sickly sweet selection of fluffy wuffy creatures I was expected to butcher had me reaching for a bucket rather than a power blade!
Select any enemy you like, stick a sword up its bum and what do you have? You have one of those cheap fairground prizes that we all used to drag home with us, which used to clutter up the place for a while before finally disintegrating and choking the cat!
(“But Mum…… You said that Mr Poshpaws went away to live on a farm!!!!”)”
Anyway I decided to post a thread asking what other forumites thought of it and the general consensus was more or less universal derision. (In as much as replies from about six people can be considered “universal”) but what really put the cat among their pigeons, was the thought of paying any kind of monthly sub on top of the already exorbitant price of a 360 game, plus the yearly cost of “Xbox Live”.
One fellow throwing his hands up in horror suggested that if all 360 games went down this route with their multiplayer content, he would be dropping the console quicksmart!
I appreciate that consoles play by different rules to PC’s, but I was really surprised that these folk were so shocked by the idea. After all many of them will have PC’s as well, even if like me it is only a laptop to surf the net. Which makes you wonder how short of living in a cave, they can have missed the fact that this has been going on since God was in short trousers.
I quickly jumped back on to reassure all that we were only talking about MMORPG’s here. Not games the like of “Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter”, or the “Call of Duty” series. Nor indeed upcoming blockbuster titles like “Rainbow Six: Las Vegas” or “Gears of War.”
There are of course next to no MMORPG’s on consoles, but I suspect that with the next generation consoles like the “360” and the “PS3” this genre will soon develop a huge Fanbase on consoles, but they’re never going to replace the kind of game which has traditionally found its home there.
I suggested that the rationale for the monthly sub pricing model went something like;
A MMORPG with a persistent and evolving gameworld uses a monthly fee to cover ongoing content and staffing. While a game which has a static gameworld (i.e. the servers might always be up, but they’re running from a limited pool of maps) doesn’t need one.
Of course a lot of people disagree with that pricing model (Don’t get Mr Corwin Started!) and personally I don’t like it having dabbled in many MMORPG’s over the years. (Particularly since in my current financial situation, it effectively excludes me in the event we do get them on consoles, because I can’t justify the ongoing cost.) But I do understand the logic of it.
While playing devils advocate to a degree and defending monthly subscriptions for MMORPG’s, I found myself thinking about one of the last ones I played before my PC went belly up. “Guild Wars.”
A game like “Guild Wars” flies in the face of this pricing tradition by ditching monthly fees and charging for an (presumably) ongoing series of add on packs which update the content. 9I know they’ve had one already. Praps it’s more by now.) The success or failure of this approach was touted as doubtless being an influence on developers in upcoming titles, so it’ll be interesting to see how it works out.
But you know what? I’m actually not sure that this “revolutionary” approach actually bears too close a scrutiny. The logic behind my doubts all comes back to that pricing model definition above, with “chargeable evolving content” v’s play across “static maps.”
“Guild Wars” claims MMORPG status and of course by strict interpretation (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) they are quite right to do so. But in actual fact there are of course major differences in the way that their game world operates.
A game like “Ultima Online” for example has a number of individual servers or “Shards.” Each of which is a complete gameworld in its own right, is maintained and evolves. Also some of the world’s evolution is dictated by the actions of the players themselves within that universe. (i.e. buying and building houses.)
Whichever shard you choose to play in, you do so alongside how ever many thousands of players from around the world have chosen the same server. It’s all happening right there in real time, so you can quest with anyone you meet and along the way you’ll see/meet/join up with any number of other players from around the globe all doing the same thing.
Of course this approach is not without its problems, for example having to queue to complete certain quests as other folk are already there ahead of you and some more modern MMORPG’s like “Anarchy Online” or I’m guessing “City of Heroes” (never played it.) address these issues with a different approach.
They keep the concept of the greater ongoing world, where any number of people can all get together for “hunting” and the like. But they introduce isolated “gaming envelopes” (for want of a better term) in which the player and any team he/she has pre-selected, can quest in their own environment to complete missions which have been generated for that individual or group alone.
What “Guild Wars” has done, (for those of you who haven’t played it.) is to do away with the “greater ongoing world” and concentrate solely instead on these individually generated missions.
The game runs around a number of “hubs” which is where the “massively multiplayer” bit comes in. In these “hubs” thousands of people can be online at the same time, meet, chat, trade with NPC’s or each other etc, but there is no questing or combat here.
The game has a certain number of missions/quests and when you fancy have a bash at one of these you travel through a “portal” either alone or with a team (of I think up to four) which you have recruited previously and then the instance of the mission you have selected, is one that is generated for your group alone.
The thing is that if you stop and think about this for a moment, you realize that these missions and quests are actually “Static Maps”! I’ll grant you that some of them are huge and all are beautiful, but none the less the implementation is the same in concept as an MP Map in say GRAW or COD2.
The “hubs” where your thousands of players might gather are really no more than staging areas where people tool up and group up prior to shipping out alone and in this you might well be forgiven for suggesting that what they are in fact are “game lobbies” albeit interactive ones, which are extremely cleverly done and very nice to look at.
It’ll be interesting to see how many “MMORPG’s” we eventually see on consoles adopting the monthly subscription model and what forms they might take.
After all it could be argued that “Test Drive Unlimited” could claim MMORPG status with its thousands logged in at once and a central character who “develops” in terms of what vehicles he owns and which clothes he wears. It does of course herald itself as an “MMO.”
Yet with only a certain number of those players visible at any given time and with linkups with friends and team mates being played effectively in isolation it might be more difficult than appears at first glance to definitively categorize.
A final point praps worth mentioning is that while the forumites I talked to might baulk at the concept of ongoing monthly fees, the phenomenon of updates and additional content for games being chargeable across the board on the “360”seems to be one happily accepted!
As an ex PC gamer I’ve been spoiled in this respect because “user mods” and user created maps and content for games ranging right across the genre spectrum are commonplace and free. Xbox live however does not have this advantage and console users pay for their new cars in TDU, or their additional maps in GRAW or (God forbid you should want some) their “horse armour” in Oblivion.
In the case of Map Packs this actually serves to create a “subcast” of players. Social pariahs who haven’t shelled out on the latest map pack and who can’t join many ongoing games accordingly. Of course this “subcast” has always existed for pc games, where not everyone keeps up with the latest maps and updates from the huge variety available in many games. But somehow it seems more poignant in a more enclose community like “Xbox Live.”
Speaking for myself, I did upgrade “COD2” but only because one map pack was free on “Xbox Live” while another came free with the “collectors edition” version of the game I bought. There’s still a third which is chargeable and which I don’t have.
But “GR:AW” is a completely different story. I don’t have any of the “map packs” for this and I’ve played a fair bit with a really nice group of people who luckily for me haven’t minded not playing the latest maps. But as guilty as I feel about being the heel dragger limiting them, the answer to the question, “are you updating and when” is frankly, “don’t know but it won’t be soon!”
If I have money scraped together I don’t want to be spending it on chargeable additional content for games for which I’ve already paid exorbitant sums. There are so many exiting titles about to be released that can’t possibly buy all the ones I want and THAT my friends, is where my “360” piggybank is pointed.
Bye for now
Badger
I was surprised the other day to discover the shocked reaction of the locals at an “Xbox 360” forum I’ve been visiting, to the topic of monthly subscriptions for MMORPG’s.
It all came about because the beta for a new game called “Phantasy Star Online” has just become available for download on “Xbox Live”. Having had a look at it myself I was less than impressed;
Here’s an exert;
“But having now completed both its tutorials I found that its cheery chirpy translations were making my teeth grind and the sickly sweet selection of fluffy wuffy creatures I was expected to butcher had me reaching for a bucket rather than a power blade!
Select any enemy you like, stick a sword up its bum and what do you have? You have one of those cheap fairground prizes that we all used to drag home with us, which used to clutter up the place for a while before finally disintegrating and choking the cat!
(“But Mum…… You said that Mr Poshpaws went away to live on a farm!!!!”)”
Anyway I decided to post a thread asking what other forumites thought of it and the general consensus was more or less universal derision. (In as much as replies from about six people can be considered “universal”) but what really put the cat among their pigeons, was the thought of paying any kind of monthly sub on top of the already exorbitant price of a 360 game, plus the yearly cost of “Xbox Live”.
One fellow throwing his hands up in horror suggested that if all 360 games went down this route with their multiplayer content, he would be dropping the console quicksmart!
I appreciate that consoles play by different rules to PC’s, but I was really surprised that these folk were so shocked by the idea. After all many of them will have PC’s as well, even if like me it is only a laptop to surf the net. Which makes you wonder how short of living in a cave, they can have missed the fact that this has been going on since God was in short trousers.
I quickly jumped back on to reassure all that we were only talking about MMORPG’s here. Not games the like of “Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter”, or the “Call of Duty” series. Nor indeed upcoming blockbuster titles like “Rainbow Six: Las Vegas” or “Gears of War.”
There are of course next to no MMORPG’s on consoles, but I suspect that with the next generation consoles like the “360” and the “PS3” this genre will soon develop a huge Fanbase on consoles, but they’re never going to replace the kind of game which has traditionally found its home there.
I suggested that the rationale for the monthly sub pricing model went something like;
A MMORPG with a persistent and evolving gameworld uses a monthly fee to cover ongoing content and staffing. While a game which has a static gameworld (i.e. the servers might always be up, but they’re running from a limited pool of maps) doesn’t need one.
Of course a lot of people disagree with that pricing model (Don’t get Mr Corwin Started!) and personally I don’t like it having dabbled in many MMORPG’s over the years. (Particularly since in my current financial situation, it effectively excludes me in the event we do get them on consoles, because I can’t justify the ongoing cost.) But I do understand the logic of it.
While playing devils advocate to a degree and defending monthly subscriptions for MMORPG’s, I found myself thinking about one of the last ones I played before my PC went belly up. “Guild Wars.”
A game like “Guild Wars” flies in the face of this pricing tradition by ditching monthly fees and charging for an (presumably) ongoing series of add on packs which update the content. 9I know they’ve had one already. Praps it’s more by now.) The success or failure of this approach was touted as doubtless being an influence on developers in upcoming titles, so it’ll be interesting to see how it works out.
But you know what? I’m actually not sure that this “revolutionary” approach actually bears too close a scrutiny. The logic behind my doubts all comes back to that pricing model definition above, with “chargeable evolving content” v’s play across “static maps.”
“Guild Wars” claims MMORPG status and of course by strict interpretation (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) they are quite right to do so. But in actual fact there are of course major differences in the way that their game world operates.
A game like “Ultima Online” for example has a number of individual servers or “Shards.” Each of which is a complete gameworld in its own right, is maintained and evolves. Also some of the world’s evolution is dictated by the actions of the players themselves within that universe. (i.e. buying and building houses.)
Whichever shard you choose to play in, you do so alongside how ever many thousands of players from around the world have chosen the same server. It’s all happening right there in real time, so you can quest with anyone you meet and along the way you’ll see/meet/join up with any number of other players from around the globe all doing the same thing.
Of course this approach is not without its problems, for example having to queue to complete certain quests as other folk are already there ahead of you and some more modern MMORPG’s like “Anarchy Online” or I’m guessing “City of Heroes” (never played it.) address these issues with a different approach.
They keep the concept of the greater ongoing world, where any number of people can all get together for “hunting” and the like. But they introduce isolated “gaming envelopes” (for want of a better term) in which the player and any team he/she has pre-selected, can quest in their own environment to complete missions which have been generated for that individual or group alone.
What “Guild Wars” has done, (for those of you who haven’t played it.) is to do away with the “greater ongoing world” and concentrate solely instead on these individually generated missions.
The game runs around a number of “hubs” which is where the “massively multiplayer” bit comes in. In these “hubs” thousands of people can be online at the same time, meet, chat, trade with NPC’s or each other etc, but there is no questing or combat here.
The game has a certain number of missions/quests and when you fancy have a bash at one of these you travel through a “portal” either alone or with a team (of I think up to four) which you have recruited previously and then the instance of the mission you have selected, is one that is generated for your group alone.
The thing is that if you stop and think about this for a moment, you realize that these missions and quests are actually “Static Maps”! I’ll grant you that some of them are huge and all are beautiful, but none the less the implementation is the same in concept as an MP Map in say GRAW or COD2.
The “hubs” where your thousands of players might gather are really no more than staging areas where people tool up and group up prior to shipping out alone and in this you might well be forgiven for suggesting that what they are in fact are “game lobbies” albeit interactive ones, which are extremely cleverly done and very nice to look at.
It’ll be interesting to see how many “MMORPG’s” we eventually see on consoles adopting the monthly subscription model and what forms they might take.
After all it could be argued that “Test Drive Unlimited” could claim MMORPG status with its thousands logged in at once and a central character who “develops” in terms of what vehicles he owns and which clothes he wears. It does of course herald itself as an “MMO.”
Yet with only a certain number of those players visible at any given time and with linkups with friends and team mates being played effectively in isolation it might be more difficult than appears at first glance to definitively categorize.
A final point praps worth mentioning is that while the forumites I talked to might baulk at the concept of ongoing monthly fees, the phenomenon of updates and additional content for games being chargeable across the board on the “360”seems to be one happily accepted!
As an ex PC gamer I’ve been spoiled in this respect because “user mods” and user created maps and content for games ranging right across the genre spectrum are commonplace and free. Xbox live however does not have this advantage and console users pay for their new cars in TDU, or their additional maps in GRAW or (God forbid you should want some) their “horse armour” in Oblivion.
In the case of Map Packs this actually serves to create a “subcast” of players. Social pariahs who haven’t shelled out on the latest map pack and who can’t join many ongoing games accordingly. Of course this “subcast” has always existed for pc games, where not everyone keeps up with the latest maps and updates from the huge variety available in many games. But somehow it seems more poignant in a more enclose community like “Xbox Live.”
Speaking for myself, I did upgrade “COD2” but only because one map pack was free on “Xbox Live” while another came free with the “collectors edition” version of the game I bought. There’s still a third which is chargeable and which I don’t have.
But “GR:AW” is a completely different story. I don’t have any of the “map packs” for this and I’ve played a fair bit with a really nice group of people who luckily for me haven’t minded not playing the latest maps. But as guilty as I feel about being the heel dragger limiting them, the answer to the question, “are you updating and when” is frankly, “don’t know but it won’t be soon!”
If I have money scraped together I don’t want to be spending it on chargeable additional content for games for which I’ve already paid exorbitant sums. There are so many exiting titles about to be released that can’t possibly buy all the ones I want and THAT my friends, is where my “360” piggybank is pointed.
Bye for now
Badger
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2006
- Messages
- 36