I've been having a conversation with the folks at Ootinicast, who are celebrating their 100th episode this week, about the latest changes to SWTOR. My thoughts don't really fit into an email that anyone would want to hear read aloud on a podcast, and I've mangled them slightly by trying.
At a minimum, Bioware appears to feel that keeping players out of current endgame content is not worth the modest amounts of money they previously charged for access. In the longer term, I think Bioware is trying as hard as they can to have more of their money come from people subscribing to partake in traditional MMO endgame staples that are more sustainable than the game's famous story content.
Content Sales, or lack thereof
The core of Bioware's re-launched model is to use their content to sell subscriptions, rather than selling their content. Games that have succeeded on a content sales model are generally able to deliver small releases of highly repeatable content every 2-3 months. If people are only paying you when you have content (new or old) that they want to play available - whether that's a one-time payment as in LOTRO and other games or a subscription that players only pay to see the next chapter in the Sith Warrior story - and you cannot maintain that release pace, you are going to have problems getting paid.
Bioware launched the game's first expansion - with the only significant new story content to date - back in April at a cost of $10 for subscribers and $20 for non-subscribers. Five months later, subscribers get permanent access to the expansion for free (even after their subscription lapses), making it cheaper for non-subscribers to pay for a $15 one-month subscription (which includes 500 Cartel Coins) than purchase the expansion at full price. This could be a routine mark-down/discount (albeit unusually early compared to other games' expansions), but I feel it's worth considering Bioware's patch strategy as well.
At the Free to Play relaunch, Bioware implemented a fee for non-subscribers to access Section X, a new daily quest area that also offered a new NPC companion. This may not have been a great test case - as the Ootini crew point out, it's the least popular of the pre-expansion daily quest areas, and Bioware gave away the unlocks in random Cartel Packs to subscribers who had no use for them and therefore resold them for trivial prices on the auction house. Good test case or not, though, there was no fee for a new daily quest area added in patch 2.3 and to my knowledge no fee planned for new content - including some story - scheduled for patch 2.4.
Towards the endgame
A for-profit company does not reduce or eliminate fees that are successfully generating revenue unless there is some other consideration. If newly level 50 players were routinely taking out their credit cards and paying for the expansion then there'd be no need to change the pricing. The alternative is that significant numbers of eligible accounts have declined to purchase the expansion.
Because the expansion is tied to a level cap increase, not paying that fee means not having access to current group content and not having access to new daily quests and revised world events in new patches. Likewise, counterintuitive as it may seem, I believe you can be a subscriber and still represent short term revenue for Bioware if you are only paying to solo the story content. Such a player is unlikely to pay extra for access to a daily quest area with little new story. In both cases, Bioware may be hoping that the player will ultimately pay for more game time if given the content for free.
Making Money
Damien Schubert once told the Ootinicasters that he would like to develop Capital Ships as guild housing in SWTOR - during that conversation, he admitted that part of the development process would have to consider how Bioware could expect to make money off of the project. This is why this seemingly academic question may matter to the game's full-time subscribers.
Endgame PVE can't suffer exactly the same fate as ranked 8-player warzones (axed after months of promises of attention to the format this fall) or craftable cosmetic gear (all reserved for the cash shop henceforth), but the level of emphasis it gets can definitely shift based on where the money is. The less money Bioware can rake in at endgame, the larger the portion of their effort they will need to shift to stuff that is open at lower levels and thus able to be paid for by more of the playerbase. Coincidence that the game is now working on a revamp to space combat that will very likely be open well before max level? Time will tell.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Failure to Transfer-proof MMO Launches
There are at least four US/EU servers in FFXIV where people I know from blogs, twitter, or podcasts have characters. I will need to pick one of those servers as a home. That choice has huge implications on my future in the game.
If I pick a newer server that is populated too heavily with tourists - players with established social ties are seldom willing or able to re-roll when new servers open post-launch - it could be deserted in a few months, leaving me high and dry in a search for groups. If I pick one of the more crowded servers and the game does somehow continue to trend upwards, I could be facing the kinds of extended performance issues that I experienced in 2004-2005 having rolled on one of the 40 WoW servers whose names were announced prior to launch. Perhaps most importantly, if I roll on a specific server to join specific people and those folks don't stick with the game, as I did in SWTOR last year, I'll be looking at a lonely experience.
I find it frustrating that we as customers who pay for online gaming services seem to have a misguided focus on the portions of the server population discussion that should be easiest to forgive. We dwell on overcrowding on launch week, even though these problems are almost always fixed in a week or two. We brand as a failure any product that ends up with too many servers and has the nerve to make the correct decision to consolidate them.
Meanwhile, I'm sitting here with a server list and a choice that's harder than it should be. There's no choice I can make today that is transfer-proof, and the provider really doesn't have an incentive to care since they stand to pocket the transfer fees if I get it wrong. It just seems like the rare thing that we as customers who are paying for a service actually have a good basis to complain about, but we don't complain much and the problem persists.
If I pick a newer server that is populated too heavily with tourists - players with established social ties are seldom willing or able to re-roll when new servers open post-launch - it could be deserted in a few months, leaving me high and dry in a search for groups. If I pick one of the more crowded servers and the game does somehow continue to trend upwards, I could be facing the kinds of extended performance issues that I experienced in 2004-2005 having rolled on one of the 40 WoW servers whose names were announced prior to launch. Perhaps most importantly, if I roll on a specific server to join specific people and those folks don't stick with the game, as I did in SWTOR last year, I'll be looking at a lonely experience.
I find it frustrating that we as customers who pay for online gaming services seem to have a misguided focus on the portions of the server population discussion that should be easiest to forgive. We dwell on overcrowding on launch week, even though these problems are almost always fixed in a week or two. We brand as a failure any product that ends up with too many servers and has the nerve to make the correct decision to consolidate them.
Meanwhile, I'm sitting here with a server list and a choice that's harder than it should be. There's no choice I can make today that is transfer-proof, and the provider really doesn't have an incentive to care since they stand to pocket the transfer fees if I get it wrong. It just seems like the rare thing that we as customers who are paying for a service actually have a good basis to complain about, but we don't complain much and the problem persists.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Wasted Content in WoW 5.4
World of Warcraft's patch 5.4 finally dropped this week, adding another gear reset to the game's progression. As a result, the unfortunate but efficient way to win Pandaria's endgame is to skip the overwhelming majority of the endgame content. It just seems like such a waste, and I continue to question whether having stats on gear is even worthwhile if it's going to waste this much content.
Raids gone by
By design, players can jump straight from heroic 5-man content into the new looking for raid content (with a very brief visit to Throne of Thunder - more on how this works in the next section). This is a good thing if your goal is to join your friends in the new content, either because you are returning to the game or rolling up a new alt. It's probably a good thing if all you want is to beat the Garrosh raid once on LFR mode to say that you've been there and looted that. If you were actually enjoying playing through multiple tiers of content and steadily acquiring new gear as you did so, however, this sort of spoils a fair chunk of content.
I have now run the Throne of Thunder LFR's once each (with an additional run through a partially completed final wing this week). That's four raid wings I could be doing weekly and getting real gear upgrades each time. At least I finished the five LFR wings from patch 5.0 before this new content arrived, because changes to gear vendors render that content pretty much entirely obsolete.
I can still go back and do the old content as it was designed - in fact, the expansion's Legendary questline sort of favors that approach (you can go straight to the Ogrimmar raid and do almost all of the steps there, but you will be grinding the same content for a very long time) - but knowing that I'm getting worse rewards for the same time investment feels like doing it wrong.
Appendix: Comparing 5.3 to 5.4
For context, an explanation of what changed and how it got us here:
Endgame PVE in WoW uses two currencies, which were not changed in the new patch. Justice points are obtained in relatively large amounts and there is no cap on how many you can earn as long as you're spending them before you get to the 4000 point cap in your currency wallet. Valor points are typically obtained in smaller amounts per reward, and there is a weekly cap in how many you can earn.
In patch 5.3, these currencies were of somewhat limited value. Your goals were to get to ilvl 460 to get into LFR and then slowly increase your ilvl up to 470 and then 480 for the higher tier content. The problem was that the justice point gear was low enough that it wasn't going to boost your average by very much, and you couldn't actually purchase any of the valor gear without first grinding reputation (primarily through solo daily quests). As a result, I basically skipped random 5-mans, and got to 460 primarily by doing the daily random scenario once per day and spending the rest of time working on miscellany (the farm, archeology, etc). Then I did the LFR's as intended.
Patch 5.4 removed the reputation requirements and downgraded almost all of the gear from the valor vendor to the justice vendor. As a result, ilvl 496 gear that previously required lengthy reputation and valor grinding to obtain is now quickly earned through unlimited random dungeons for easily obtained justice points. This obsoletes the five LFR wings from 5.0, as it takes longer to earn fewer, lower quality rewards that will still actively hurt your average for the newest content in patch 5.4.
Additionally, ilvl 522 rep rewards from the 5.2 raid now require only friendly reputation with that raid's faction. You'll get this in maybe 2 hours by running 3-4 wings of 5.2 LFR's. Once you have this rep, the return on your time in 5.2 content is questionable - you can earn valor points faster in other formats (including heroics) and those points get you ilvl 522 vendor rewards rather than scraping for a chance at ilvl 502 stuff in the 5.2 LFR's.
Raids gone by
By design, players can jump straight from heroic 5-man content into the new looking for raid content (with a very brief visit to Throne of Thunder - more on how this works in the next section). This is a good thing if your goal is to join your friends in the new content, either because you are returning to the game or rolling up a new alt. It's probably a good thing if all you want is to beat the Garrosh raid once on LFR mode to say that you've been there and looted that. If you were actually enjoying playing through multiple tiers of content and steadily acquiring new gear as you did so, however, this sort of spoils a fair chunk of content.
I have now run the Throne of Thunder LFR's once each (with an additional run through a partially completed final wing this week). That's four raid wings I could be doing weekly and getting real gear upgrades each time. At least I finished the five LFR wings from patch 5.0 before this new content arrived, because changes to gear vendors render that content pretty much entirely obsolete.
I can still go back and do the old content as it was designed - in fact, the expansion's Legendary questline sort of favors that approach (you can go straight to the Ogrimmar raid and do almost all of the steps there, but you will be grinding the same content for a very long time) - but knowing that I'm getting worse rewards for the same time investment feels like doing it wrong.
Appendix: Comparing 5.3 to 5.4
For context, an explanation of what changed and how it got us here:
Endgame PVE in WoW uses two currencies, which were not changed in the new patch. Justice points are obtained in relatively large amounts and there is no cap on how many you can earn as long as you're spending them before you get to the 4000 point cap in your currency wallet. Valor points are typically obtained in smaller amounts per reward, and there is a weekly cap in how many you can earn.
In patch 5.3, these currencies were of somewhat limited value. Your goals were to get to ilvl 460 to get into LFR and then slowly increase your ilvl up to 470 and then 480 for the higher tier content. The problem was that the justice point gear was low enough that it wasn't going to boost your average by very much, and you couldn't actually purchase any of the valor gear without first grinding reputation (primarily through solo daily quests). As a result, I basically skipped random 5-mans, and got to 460 primarily by doing the daily random scenario once per day and spending the rest of time working on miscellany (the farm, archeology, etc). Then I did the LFR's as intended.
Patch 5.4 removed the reputation requirements and downgraded almost all of the gear from the valor vendor to the justice vendor. As a result, ilvl 496 gear that previously required lengthy reputation and valor grinding to obtain is now quickly earned through unlimited random dungeons for easily obtained justice points. This obsoletes the five LFR wings from 5.0, as it takes longer to earn fewer, lower quality rewards that will still actively hurt your average for the newest content in patch 5.4.
Additionally, ilvl 522 rep rewards from the 5.2 raid now require only friendly reputation with that raid's faction. You'll get this in maybe 2 hours by running 3-4 wings of 5.2 LFR's. Once you have this rep, the return on your time in 5.2 content is questionable - you can earn valor points faster in other formats (including heroics) and those points get you ilvl 522 vendor rewards rather than scraping for a chance at ilvl 502 stuff in the 5.2 LFR's.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Is SWTOR Space Combat a Good Idea?
SWTOR all but announced over the weekend that their long rumored "super secret space project (SSSP)" is a new off-rails space dogfighting minigame (see Ootinicast for a detailed summary of the event). This idea is pretty universally popular (see Werit) - does that make expanding the game this far beyond its current scope a good idea?
The big trade-off when adding a major new game feature is the time that the developers weren't able to spend developing something else. When your game already has instanced dungeons for 4-6 players including a tank and a healer, and you go to add instanced content for 3 players with no class restrictions, you are building something that is plausibly of interest to people who are already playing your game.
By contrast, we have EVE Online's decision to expand their space economy game into a First Person Shooter spin-off (that was platform exclusive to the PS3 for no reason that I've ever heard explained by anyone). I haven't heard how this effort has done recently, this idea has always faced a challenge because of how far it strays from both its parent and its new genre. Why would someone looking to play a new FPS want their battles to be dictated and decided by people playing a different space combat game?
SWTOR's project isn't quite that extreme. Space dogfights are a major part of the Star Wars lore and movies, and the game was widely criticized at launch for including an on-rails space combat game rather than a more open system. That said, the current system is also completely optional - I never completed a single space combat mission (I did somehow fail the first one I tried about three times before giving up on the system for good), and it's even access-restricted for non-subscribers.
Thus, the question remains - if you weren't willing to play the game before, why would you want to put up with an MMORPG as a condition of getting your space combat game? If you are a current player but off-rails space combat was an absolute must-have deal-breaker feature, wouldn't you have quit SWTOR by now? More likely, the question of whether this was a good use of Bioware's time will hinge on its ability to extract more revenue from existing players. The sale of cosmetic ship appearances in the cash store gambling packs is an absolute certainty, and it remains to be seen what else they will have to tack on in terms of sales of power and/or access to recoup their investment. I wonder if the system will be as popular when it's more than just a teaser video.
The big trade-off when adding a major new game feature is the time that the developers weren't able to spend developing something else. When your game already has instanced dungeons for 4-6 players including a tank and a healer, and you go to add instanced content for 3 players with no class restrictions, you are building something that is plausibly of interest to people who are already playing your game.
By contrast, we have EVE Online's decision to expand their space economy game into a First Person Shooter spin-off (that was platform exclusive to the PS3 for no reason that I've ever heard explained by anyone). I haven't heard how this effort has done recently, this idea has always faced a challenge because of how far it strays from both its parent and its new genre. Why would someone looking to play a new FPS want their battles to be dictated and decided by people playing a different space combat game?
SWTOR's project isn't quite that extreme. Space dogfights are a major part of the Star Wars lore and movies, and the game was widely criticized at launch for including an on-rails space combat game rather than a more open system. That said, the current system is also completely optional - I never completed a single space combat mission (I did somehow fail the first one I tried about three times before giving up on the system for good), and it's even access-restricted for non-subscribers.
Thus, the question remains - if you weren't willing to play the game before, why would you want to put up with an MMORPG as a condition of getting your space combat game? If you are a current player but off-rails space combat was an absolute must-have deal-breaker feature, wouldn't you have quit SWTOR by now? More likely, the question of whether this was a good use of Bioware's time will hinge on its ability to extract more revenue from existing players. The sale of cosmetic ship appearances in the cash store gambling packs is an absolute certainty, and it remains to be seen what else they will have to tack on in terms of sales of power and/or access to recoup their investment. I wonder if the system will be as popular when it's more than just a teaser video.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
PVD PAX Prime Recap
I managed to tack a single day of PAX Prime onto a trip to the Seattle to visit family - apologies to any readers who might otherwise have wanted to chat, I'd planned to post about this trip in advance, but the family vacation cabin rental turned out not to have internet access. Anyway, it's not ideal to try and cram a show this large into a single day, but I accomplished significantly more than I'd expected.
The good - the community
As with my previous PAX experience, the best part of the gathering is the chance to see the people. I managed to just stagger in the door in time to catch the MMO Reporter pre-PAX gathering on Thursday. I'd met Chris back at PAX East in 2012, and this time I got to meet the rest of the crew. In addition, I finally met up with Syp of Bio Break and various other projects. We've been chatting online through our blogs for five years now, and neither of us knew in advance that the other would be in attendance, so it was pretty cool to walk up to a table and get introduced.
These blog celebrities aside, it's always to be a treat amongst our folks. I had some nice conversations with total strangers at this gathering, FFXIV's debacle of a launch party, and elsewhere in the show. I also got a fair amount of swag - neither LOTRO nor Trion were in attendance with official gatherings this year, and they appear to have shipped their allotment of prizes on to the MMO Reporter shindig. Good time all around.
The Bad - crowds, lines, etc
There's a certain amount of chaos that is inevitably going to happen when this many people show up. That said, PAX Prime's bigger scale seemed to make for larger logistic snafu's than in the East in 2012. I showed up 30 minutes after the show floor opened, expecting to find the lines dispersed into the venue. Instead, I was directed to a 20 minute line that went around the equivalent of two city blocks.... that ultimately deposited us back at the same place where we'd been ordered to go get in line, where people who showed up after we had were being allowed directly into the venue.
There were at least 200 people behind me in that line who also would have been better off waiting a few more minutes before they got in line. I understand a need to spread out the crowd, but this absurdity felt like it was punishing those of us who played by the rules and did what we were told - if you're going to make people line up, it's only fair to let the people in the line into the venue first.
That said, this paled in comparison to FFXIV's launch party. The game re-launched this week and had major issues with server load despite the experience from both the original launch and several beta/headstarts. (See - Saylah and Keen for more info, I sat out the re-launch due to my vacation.) It appears to only be appropriate that the party went at badly. I showed up at the 3:30 PM "doors open" time and was number seven in line when the room was declared to be full for the developer panel - no additional people were admitted to the room during the panel even as folks began to leave.
You might have imagined that the developers could have repeated their presentation for the several hundred people in line outside, but this was not in the cards. The activities when we were finally allowed into the room included a total of eight demo stations for the early game, a greenscreen booth for people who want to be photoshopped onto the game's Facebook page, and a massively long line for the chance to do a PUG raid encounter to win some t-shirts if your group was successful. The SE people were admitting to each other that even folks who showed up when I did - over five hours before the end of the event - might not make it through this line in time, but still there were large numbers of folks waiting to get into the line when I gave up and left to spend my time elsewhere. Ironically, this was my number one MMO to check out at the show and I would even have considered picking up a copy (they had them for sale, but on a cash-only full MSRP basis and no bonus swag for buying on the spot), so they really blew the chance to make a good impression.
The unfortunate, lowered hopes
The good - the community
As with my previous PAX experience, the best part of the gathering is the chance to see the people. I managed to just stagger in the door in time to catch the MMO Reporter pre-PAX gathering on Thursday. I'd met Chris back at PAX East in 2012, and this time I got to meet the rest of the crew. In addition, I finally met up with Syp of Bio Break and various other projects. We've been chatting online through our blogs for five years now, and neither of us knew in advance that the other would be in attendance, so it was pretty cool to walk up to a table and get introduced.
These blog celebrities aside, it's always to be a treat amongst our folks. I had some nice conversations with total strangers at this gathering, FFXIV's debacle of a launch party, and elsewhere in the show. I also got a fair amount of swag - neither LOTRO nor Trion were in attendance with official gatherings this year, and they appear to have shipped their allotment of prizes on to the MMO Reporter shindig. Good time all around.
The Bad - crowds, lines, etc
There's a certain amount of chaos that is inevitably going to happen when this many people show up. That said, PAX Prime's bigger scale seemed to make for larger logistic snafu's than in the East in 2012. I showed up 30 minutes after the show floor opened, expecting to find the lines dispersed into the venue. Instead, I was directed to a 20 minute line that went around the equivalent of two city blocks.... that ultimately deposited us back at the same place where we'd been ordered to go get in line, where people who showed up after we had were being allowed directly into the venue.
There were at least 200 people behind me in that line who also would have been better off waiting a few more minutes before they got in line. I understand a need to spread out the crowd, but this absurdity felt like it was punishing those of us who played by the rules and did what we were told - if you're going to make people line up, it's only fair to let the people in the line into the venue first.
That said, this paled in comparison to FFXIV's launch party. The game re-launched this week and had major issues with server load despite the experience from both the original launch and several beta/headstarts. (See - Saylah and Keen for more info, I sat out the re-launch due to my vacation.) It appears to only be appropriate that the party went at badly. I showed up at the 3:30 PM "doors open" time and was number seven in line when the room was declared to be full for the developer panel - no additional people were admitted to the room during the panel even as folks began to leave.
You might have imagined that the developers could have repeated their presentation for the several hundred people in line outside, but this was not in the cards. The activities when we were finally allowed into the room included a total of eight demo stations for the early game, a greenscreen booth for people who want to be photoshopped onto the game's Facebook page, and a massively long line for the chance to do a PUG raid encounter to win some t-shirts if your group was successful. The SE people were admitting to each other that even folks who showed up when I did - over five hours before the end of the event - might not make it through this line in time, but still there were large numbers of folks waiting to get into the line when I gave up and left to spend my time elsewhere. Ironically, this was my number one MMO to check out at the show and I would even have considered picking up a copy (they had them for sale, but on a cash-only full MSRP basis and no bonus swag for buying on the spot), so they really blew the chance to make a good impression.
The unfortunate, lowered hopes
- Wildstar: By far the best experience I had at the show was at the Wildstar booth, which was my other top priority (and happened first because the FFXIV did not start until later in the afternoon). They were handing out lanyards to anyone who signed up for beta, but the real prize was for playing the game.
They had something like 24 stations up and running for timed 25-minute play sessions. The options were the new starting area for the maniacal Chua race (though this was open to the entire Dominion faction for the demo) and a newer higher level area. You were in for a bit of a wait - I waited around 40 minutes, which was also an opportunity to scout out what the other people were playing, and not bad return on investment as far as these lines go. As if the play session for one of the most anticipated MMO's out there wasn't reward enough, there was a free t-shirt for everyone who waited long enough to get a demo station.
I went with a Dominion Human Esper class, a ranged psychic damage dealer, in the new starting area. The nuts and bolts of the game are the standard quest-based MMO, with the addition of secondary objectives based on your chosen "path". Unfortunately, the combat was action-based, which is not an MMO trend that I'm fond of. Almost every ability for both player and enemy attacks is targeted on the ground, so combat requires frequent but uninteresting movement out of the enemy's target area. I respect people who like this, but I don't feel that it adds real depth, just additional work. Thus my best convention experience also seems to all but drop this game off of my watch list. - Assassin's Creed 4: For reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, Ubisoft has decided to make the next game in this series an open world piracy (that's 1700's era people with swords and boats who say "Arr") game. It looks like a great game about pirates. Unfortunately, the Order of Assassins are really ninjas, not pirates. There is some stealth, but they did not show any actual sneaking up on people to assassinate them, and instead focused on naval ship battles, spear-fishing for sharks, and 18th century diving for treasure.
- WB Games Booth: The only Turbine game present was the new DC Universe MOBA, and it appeared that you had to sign up in a team to play a live televised match to be allowed to play it. There was also the newest single player Batman game, which, fortunately, does not appear to focus on whaling and naval combat.
- Elder Scrolls Online: This was another lengthy line, and one I decided to bail out on due to the length and what I was seeing over the shoulders of the people playing. It looks like the single player games that I declined to play over the years, so I guess that's a good thing.
- SOE: SOE was in the house to talk up Dragon's Prophet, EQ Next, and surprisingly DCUO. EQN wasn't playable, but it had a respectable following.
- Square Enix: FFXIV was all off-site, but they had stations available for two HD re-mixes and the new Lightning Returns game. Looked reasonable enough.
- Next Generation Consoles: I'm not expecting to buy a next gen console at launch. If I had, I probably would have tried to fit in the new Infamous title.
Overall, I guess it's not a bad thing that there are so few major titles on my radar - more time to catch up on all the MMO's I'm behind on. If I'd had more time I would probably have tried to catch the big MMO panel and TESO, but really I covered basically all of my high priorities.
What are you all watching out of the show?
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Cash and Burn
I'm concerned that MMO Gamer Chick and Tobold are correct in their suspicions about this week's business model announcements. Two of the highest profile upcoming MMO releases - Wildstar and Elder Scrolls - plan to launch with a mandatory box purchase and mandatory subscription fee despite nearly nine-years' worth of post-WoW MMO launches that have failed to sustain that model. Both bloggers note that it would be borderline irresponsible for a business launching a subscription MMO NOT to have a back-up F2P plan - indeed, it appears that both titles may be setting the groundwork, with Wildstar's implementation of in-game time card items seen in other MMO's (including the F2P relaunches of EQ2 and Rift) and the cash shop that Elder Scrolls apparently confirmed in a German interview.
Unfortunately, the same financial incentives dictate that launching with a subscription is an opportunity to extract $60 for the retail box (with $150 or higher price tags widely accepted for collector's editions) and some subscription revenue in the interim - especially if there's a chance to sell people on "discounted" pre-paid six-month subscriptions before they've had the chance to play the game.
The problem isn't the subscription fee itself, the entry barrier created by the initial box price, the bad press often generated as games visibly fail to live up to their original promises (Elder Scrolls is already making the same promises that they plan to update every 4-6 weeks that so many studios have failed to sustain), or whether the final business model when the dust settles is in any way sensible. My main concern isn't even that this model puts MMO studios in the business of exploiting hype and vague, misleading information to make a quick buck. As Bhagpuss points out, these things ultimately have limited impact on the merits of the actual gameplay.
The real casualty of these cash and burn tactics is the community. When the dust settles, the tourists have come, overpaid, and gone. The jaded veterans like myself have waited for the inevitable re-launch and gotten a high quality product at a fire sale price. The cost is that the community is shattered as the majority of servers shut down, the majority of your friends leave for games that are looking more promising, and the folks who do return do so for brief periods as the content release schedule permits. This may not change the gameplay - especially as more titles are offering more ways to play and win with limited time and commitment - but it definitely changes the experience of playing these games and experiencing these worlds.
If this is the solution to the problem of how to finance MMO development, it's a sad day.
Unfortunately, the same financial incentives dictate that launching with a subscription is an opportunity to extract $60 for the retail box (with $150 or higher price tags widely accepted for collector's editions) and some subscription revenue in the interim - especially if there's a chance to sell people on "discounted" pre-paid six-month subscriptions before they've had the chance to play the game.
The problem isn't the subscription fee itself, the entry barrier created by the initial box price, the bad press often generated as games visibly fail to live up to their original promises (Elder Scrolls is already making the same promises that they plan to update every 4-6 weeks that so many studios have failed to sustain), or whether the final business model when the dust settles is in any way sensible. My main concern isn't even that this model puts MMO studios in the business of exploiting hype and vague, misleading information to make a quick buck. As Bhagpuss points out, these things ultimately have limited impact on the merits of the actual gameplay.
The real casualty of these cash and burn tactics is the community. When the dust settles, the tourists have come, overpaid, and gone. The jaded veterans like myself have waited for the inevitable re-launch and gotten a high quality product at a fire sale price. The cost is that the community is shattered as the majority of servers shut down, the majority of your friends leave for games that are looking more promising, and the folks who do return do so for brief periods as the content release schedule permits. This may not change the gameplay - especially as more titles are offering more ways to play and win with limited time and commitment - but it definitely changes the experience of playing these games and experiencing these worlds.
If this is the solution to the problem of how to finance MMO development, it's a sad day.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Missed Events of August
It's been a busy month and I've missed a variety of things - some that I regret and some that I do not.
- Golden Lotus Storyline: I was aware that Blizzard was removing the Vol'jin world event introduced in patch 5.3 when patch 5.4 launches, presumably next week. I was not aware until very recently that the patch also blows up the entire Vale and with it removes a large chunk of the less-than-one-year-old Golden Lotus storyline from the expansion. I scrambled when I found out, but it does not appear feasible for me to gain the required reputation in the time remaining. As an aside, I'm gaining this rep nearly twice as fast as was possible when the expansion rolled out due to new mechanics (rep for scenarios, dungeons, and farming) and it still feels slow - no wonder people were less than thrilled with Pandaria's launch.
- FFXIV Open Beta: I'm frustrated that every studio insists that limited time events run on weekends. Personally, I play most of my MMO's to unwind after work on week nights and have less time to spend on MMO's during the weekend. In this case, that missing the party have been a good thing, as I've heard less than ideal things about how Square handled the inevitable soft launch server population issues. (The open beta servers will NOT be wiped, and is followed by a headstart this week.) That said, I have not heard anything about a free trial, so it's not clear whether there will be any mechanism to try before you buy for those of us who missed this weekend. Not necessarily the best move for a game trying to shake a bad reputation.
- Hearthstone: Got into the beta direct from Blizzard. Not sure what, if anything, I'll do with that access - why spend time unlocking stuff now when the final game will be F2P and the beta is going to be wiped?
- Patch 2.3 in SWTOR: New endgame content. Guess it's not going anywhere.
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