Hellgate: London requiring subscription fees for online play?!? - confirmed

You people whine too much.

If you dont want to pay dont, and play for free. Theres tons of willing people who are willing to pay. In fact theres probably at least 20 million subscribers to MMO's worldwide. 10 bucks isnt going to break you every month, and I live fairly close to a legal poverty level.

Boo hoo? Seriously I dont get the gripe.
 
Draax said:
That’s the problem.
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Why? Because theres a market for it? We arent exactly in a poor country. If you want premium product you pay a premium price. Think about this. The average enthusiast spends.. how much on his computer per year?

How much more is spent on video games? I'm no where near as bad as my brother and he spends at least 400-500 a year on games alone. How much does an average spend on CD's a year? Soft drinks? Junk food? My main point being is that the average consumer spends quite excessively enough to the point where 10 bucks for a game that your going to be playing for a good chunk primarily of most of your time isnt that big of a deal. If 10 bucks is honestly going to break you, then you probably dont need to be playing a computer and paying video games, let alone paying for a monthly fee and extra electricity bills.

What do you get for that extra money spent? Continued development of the game. The game development industry is a multi billion dollar industry with increasing demands by the consumer, that being us. In the past, a game was developed and the sales of the game had to counter balance the amount of time it had to pay for its employees to make said game. In the modern games community, this is not possible. Game can take several years to develop, resulting in millions of dollars in the hole for whoever is publishing and/or investing into the title. In such a circumstance, not only will the game have to sell well to make money, but the addition of monthly fees is the only way they gain any money so they can produce more happy titles that we all enjoy.

I mean, do you think a game like WoW could honestly stay afloat without monthly fees? MMO's (and nearly all games in general that are played on servers) require a vast amount of upkeep. If you have 300,000 subscribers to said game, there is a monstrous amount of background tech support that has to happen just to make sure the game runs smoothly, and if the giant spider web of a system works perfectly, we all know that all subscribers will whine like children about how the servers were down for 3 hours of their monthly fee. The alternative would be to have player run servers, but then you have to face the odds of things like hacking and a strong player base to actually adopt and pay for their own server game space. Some games are capable of this, like CSS, but can you honestly argue that FSS wanted to go with their own dedicated servers to maintain the security of their own game? Thus giving non cheating members the gaming experience that they deserve?
 
Go ahead and pay for instanced game play, which is offered FOR FREE, by many other companies, there is one born every minute after all. Roper was a proponent of keeping instanced game play such as Diablo, free through the use of battle net. World of Warcraft and Hellgate London are entirely different, it would be wise to understand said difference.

It’s not the monthly price, it’s the principle.

Maybe we should start paying for patches for games as well, oh wait thats what you will be doing in Hellgate.
 
Draax said:
Go ahead and pay for instanced game play, which is offered FOR FREE, by many other companies, there is one born every minute after all. Roper was a proponent of keeping instanced game play such as Diablo, free through the use of battle net. World of Warcraft and Hellgate London are entirely different, it would be wise to understand said difference.

It’s not the monthly price, it’s the principle.

Maybe we should start paying for patches for games as well.
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Battle.net is an entirely different pickle to consider. At the time, it would of been unreasonable to charge for online play in the games market. Heck, one of the first games to charge for online play was Ultimate Online (at least in the MMO type of genre, excluding pay to play BBS' and the like), and that was released a good year or two after Diablo.

I'm not sure I'm quite understanding, but what do you mean of the principle? Ultimately Roper's goal is going to be to make money. In a perfect world he might not want it that way, but if it wasnt that way, then he couldnt get published. Publishers are pretty money hungry mostly, and they wont support anything that wont make them cash. :p

I'm just saying you cant really blame FSS for charging here. Its just the dynamics of commercialism and giant MMO's. Sure, theres some free online games, but have you ever heard of them in the popular market? I havent. The only reason I know of them is because I fumble on them online.

I'm just saying, if you want big business support to compete in the big business gaming world, your going to have to charge. Only in the world of a cult phenomenom (wow that looks mispelled.. it has to be..) can any online game ever reach huge fame and still be free. Diablo I and II was just one such thing.
 
Hellgate is not a giant MMO, it is an instanced game. Guild wars, which has no monthly fee is directly comparable to Hellgate, WoW is not.
 
Draax said:
Hellgate is not a giant MMO, it is an instanced game. Guild wars, which has no monthly fee is directly comparable to Hellgate, WoW is not.
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Yea, but the technology required to do that in Guild Wars is probably copyrighted. They had to develop the technology to keep the costs down. Besides, there initial conception of the game was to be a game that had continuous expansions to keep revenue running. Expansions or monthly fees, your still paying.

All this aside, I consider NCSoft quite a deal better than EA as publishers as well. NCSoft always pushes the limits of online games, while EA is known for lawsuits and MMO cancelations. :(

But all this said, if you dont want to pay it, then dont. *shrug* I'll gladly pay $10 a month for Roper's brainchild and the continued development of said game. His games in the past have been no less than brilliant.
 
Neist said:
Yea, but the technology required to do that in Guild Wars is probably copyrighted. They had to develop the technology to keep the costs down. Besides, there initial conception of the game was to be a game that had continuous expansions to keep revenue running. Expansions or monthly fees, your still paying.

All this aside, I consider NCSoft quite a deal better than EA as publishers as well. NCSoft always pushes the limits of online games, while EA is known for lawsuits and MMO cancelations. :(

But all this said, if you dont want to pay it, then dont. *shrug* I'll gladly pay $10 a month for Roper's brainchild and the continued development of said game. His games in the past have been no less than brilliant.
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That's just the thing though, as you so eloquently put it "expansions or monthly fees, your still paying" (emphasis mine). Traditionally, instanced games took one of the options, not both. Guild Wars eschewed a fee in favor of expansions every year or so thereafter. The simple fact of the matter is that instanced games put far less strain on servers than a truly massive world. As such, user computers do the majority of the work. You're essentially charging users to make them use their own resources.

As far as I know, HG:L is the first time a big budget title has chosen to use BOTH options. Granted, there definitely will be people will to pay for it. On the grand scale, it is a small amount of money, but it's a slippery slope and very similar to the microtransactions that MS is getting into with the console market. At what point do we draw the line and say that it's ridiculous that we don't get the entire content of the game we already paid full price for?
 
Neist said:
My main point being is that the average consumer spends quite excessively enough to the point where 10 bucks for a game that your going to be playing for a good chunk primarily of most of your time isnt that big of a deal.
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That's ridiculous. You're saying instead of pay for a game that could quite easily last plenty of replay time at a one-time regular fee (let's say 40-50 bucks for a new title) that you can replay for the rest of the time you have a computer, you should toss money away every month that is immediately a poor investment the month you stop paying. Diablo 2, along with its expansion, cost me roughly 60 dollars, and lasted me more than 6 years. That's less than a dollar a month. Half-Life lasted me roughly 5-6 years at a cost of roughly 30 dollars. Do the math.

You are of the truly hoodwinked populace that sees corporate logic that since you are already throwing money away, you should just keep doing so. For such a point that reeks of self-righteousness, it's patently ludicrous for you not to stand up for the original standpoint that AVOIDED more unnecessary waste. The true despicability is knowing that you are being excessively consumptive, and just doing it more while using your already poor behavior as an excuse. It's like people who go out and get drunk every night, and when people tell them they should stop, they call it a disease and keep doing it.

I understand that the technological world is always moving forward. This doesn't mean it is always good progress. I hope the vast majority of the player base of H:L refuses to get those "elite" memberships and help to put a big fat fucking kaibosh on the bloodletting tactics of game companies.
 
saan44 said:
That's just the thing though, as you so eloquently put it "expansions or monthly fees, your still paying" (emphasis mine). Traditionally, instanced games took one of the options, not both. Guild Wars eschewed a fee in favor of expansions every year or so thereafter. The simple fact of the matter is that instanced games put far less strain on servers than a truly massive world. As such, user computers do the majority of the work. You're essentially charging users to make them use their own resources.

As far as I know, HG:L is the first time a big budget title has chosen to use BOTH options. Granted, there definitely will be people will to pay for it. On the grand scale, it is a small amount of money, but it's a slippery slope and very similar to the microtransactions that MS is getting into with the console market. At what point do we draw the line and say that it's ridiculous that we don't get the entire content of the game we already paid full price for?
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Well if there is a line to be drawn, I can say that HGL would probably be the least of our worries (and I think you would agree with that). Just becuase they do in fact give us a choice allows FSS to cater to either gamers personally tastes.

But a guess a great amount of these discussions is really going to heavily depend on how much after release content that FSS is going to release. If the content is stale post release, then I would definitely agree that the charges are unwarranted.

Aelfgeft said:
That's ridiculous. You're saying instead of pay for a game that could quite easily last plenty of replay time at a one-time regular fee (let's say 40-50 bucks for a new title) that you can replay for the rest of the time you have a computer, you should toss money away every month that is immediately a poor investment the month you stop paying. Diablo 2, along with its expansion, cost me roughly 60 dollars, and lasted me more than 6 years. That's less than a dollar a month. Half-Life lasted me roughly 5-6 years at a cost of roughly 30 dollars. Do the math.

You are of the truly hoodwinked populace that sees corporate logic that since you are already throwing money away, you should just keep doing so. For such a point that reeks of self-righteousness, it's patently ludicrous for you not to stand up for the original standpoint that AVOIDED more unnecessary waste. The true despicability is knowing that you are being excessively consumptive, and just doing it more while using your already poor behavior as an excuse. It's like people who go out and get drunk every night, and when people tell them they should stop, they call it a disease and keep doing it.

I understand that the technological world is always moving forward. This doesn't mean it is always good progress. I hope the vast majority of the player base of H:L refuses to get those "elite" memberships and help to put a big fat fucking kaibosh on the bloodletting tactics of game companies.
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Unneccesarily wasteful eh? You know without consumerism the economy in the country I live in would be entirely shot to heck. You say its a disease for spending money on things that I want to spend it on? Please... By giving money to FSS I'm at least unwillingly claiming support for their future endeavors. If FSS was some corporate monsters then sure, I wouldnt pay, but they have a solid team and have created solid games in the past (as Blizzard North). Why would you not want to support the people create games for you? My monthly fee (even if wastely) is my gift to them to continue with the development of future games. You can easily take your stance and skew the viewpoint to make perfect sense to another individual.

I would dare say that most people visiting these forums "excessively waste" as you put it. With the amount of money and electricity that an average computer gaming enthusiast spends on parts and games every year could be spent feeding a family of four for the same amount of time. Before you attack me and my current 3 year old computer that I will play a game that will cost me a grand total $120 a year, then attack some other forum member who spends 10 times that a year.

The fact that game companies charge montly fees does not make me pay for those fees. I pay for those fees because I want to support those who make those games. That little fact is what you dont seem to understand, at least about myself.

Heck, if your just considering the money as excessive waste, then compare it to anything else. Stop drinking soft drinks and cut down the costs. Make your own clothes. Become a vegan, because the costs of eating meat over grain is substantially higher. If we honestly wanted to beat this horse to death about excessive waste then you'd have to be living out in a cottage without electricity. Everyone choose to spend money excessively on something or another, unless your just especially poor. And if your especially poor, then you dont need to have a computer to begin with (as you could spend money better off in other places.. like food).

I mean.. I played WoW for a year and a half (costing me around $270 in monthly fees), clocking over 2880 hours (around 120 days). That averaged in about costing me around $.09 an hour before electricity and the initial purchase of the game. What other forms of entertainment besides TV can you get so cheaply?
 
Neist said:
Well if there is a line to be drawn, I can say that HGL would probably be the least of our worries (and I think you would agree with that). Just becuase they do in fact give us a choice allows FSS to cater to either gamers personally tastes.

But a guess a great amount of these discussions is really going to heavily depend on how much after release content that FSS is going to release. If the content is stale post release, then I would definitely agree that the charges are unwarranted.
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I wouldn't consider it a clear choice of options though. Those that pay get blatant advantages over those that don't. It would like WoW having a free option, but only those that subscribed would be able to get mounts and epic items.

My point is that the costs are artificially high in the US because we put up with this crap. They're lower in Asia because that's what the market there dictates. If people keep going along with this type of price gouging, then studios are just going to keep going higher and higher to see what we allow them to get away with. There's a patent disregard for the customer when shit like this happens and personally, despite $10/month being a relatively small sum of money, I'd rather stop studios now before it gets completely out of hand.

Like you said, it will be interesting to see if Flagship can keep up with their promise to deliver new content every two weeks post-release. If that falls through, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever that I can think of to make it subscription based outside of greed.
 
Neist said:
Why would you not want to support the people create games for you? My monthly fee (even if wastely) is my gift to them to continue with the development of future games. You can easily take your stance and skew the viewpoint to make perfect sense to another individual.The fact that game companies charge montly fees does not make me pay for those fees. I pay for those fees because I want to support those who make those games. That little fact is what you dont seem to understand, at least about myself.
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The fact that you either are too young to appreciate or have conveniently forgotten is that we supported those who made games by BUYING the damn games for DECADES. You act like before this, they never got any money. Have you been under a rock while the best selling games of all time included free online play?

What other forms of entertainment besides TV can you get so cheaply?
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Now you're really worrying me. CDs (not to mention old-fashioned buy-once video games) are played over and over. Books are cheap as hell. First you're acting like people should feel grateful to be able to shell out additional cost per month for a game they usually already paid full price for, then you act like this is the only way to entertain yourself? As you said, it's a disease, at least from that perspective. When the only way you can entertain yourself is with a game you have to get your monthly "fix" for (and you always need more), that's a drug.

Edit: Just so you know, you're talking to a person who used to drop wadges of cash on Magic in the early expansion days, as well as the Decipher Star Wars game. Stacks of cards, thousands of dollars, all worthless. It was like a drug then as well. I've been there, and I know it's a foolish thing. Meanwhile, guess what happened? The CCG business went belly-up after Pokemon. Only CCG left with any real sales is, ironically, the WoW card game, as even Magic's sales have tanked. If Pay-To-Play continues for computer games, we'll see another sunset before the reawakening.
 
Neist said:
If you want premium product you pay a premium price.
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THIS --^ is the center of our whole issue Neist. While some of us may dislike having to buy an MMOG twice, those types of games fit your premium price for a premium product analogy. This DOESN'T. This is a BASIC product for a PREMIUM price. This is an instanced game with a matchmaking service. The other free online games that you mention are exactly what this game should be lumped with. HL, HL2, CSS, the BattleField series, Diablo 1 & 2, etc. All of these games offer some online multiplay in an essentially instanced world. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HG:L IS!!!! Our problem with the situation is that FSS is trying to make this whole free online group a paid online group when it simply does not warrant it for the content and gameplay that we, as the consumer, receive.

 
saan44 said:
I wouldn't consider it a clear choice of options though. Those that pay get blatant advantages over those that don't. It would like WoW having a free option, but only those that subscribed would be able to get mounts and epic items.

My point is that the costs are artificially high in the US because we put up with this crap. They're lower in Asia because that's what the market there dictates. If people keep going along with this type of price gouging, then studios are just going to keep going higher and higher to see what we allow them to get away with. There's a patent disregard for the customer when shit like this happens and personally, despite $10/month being a relatively small sum of money, I'd rather stop studios now before it gets completely out of hand.

Like you said, it will be interesting to see if Flagship can keep up with their promise to deliver new content every two weeks post-release. If that falls through, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever that I can think of to make it subscription based outside of greed.
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I would definitely agree with this. US citizens blow money pretty easily. I mean just look at the cost of clothes anymore.. geez.. But, I have to admit, you have to give it to FSS for releasing Mythos. Apparently its going to be free with no monthly charge. I'm in the Alpha (soon to be Beta) and the game is very fun. I may even keep playing it after HGL is released.

Aelfgeft said:
The fact that you either are too young to appreciate or have conveniently forgotten is that we supported those who made games by BUYING the damn games for DECADES. You act like before this, they never got any money. Have you been under a rock while the best selling games of all time included free online play?
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I'm actually not that entirely young (though I am in my 20's, I'm semi young :p), but I do realize that buying them does give back some of the costs, but not all of them. I mean if we really wanted to get at the root of it, its because of incredibly high cost of living and the amount of money people in the technical industries can make. The cost of the games is actually paying for the 2-3 years of development it took 20-30 people to make the game. Heck, the original WoW development team was some horribly high number, like 100. To even cut even with costs they have to sell a substantial amount of games to cut even.

Now, this would be fine if they were to simply move onto another game and repeat the whole process over again. But anymore it seems that game studios are creating secondary teams to take on a new title while having the remaining team tune the existing title. The monthly fees go into account to pay for this extra manpower that most companies opt to use.

Aelfgeft said:
Now you're really worrying me. CDs (not to mention old-fashioned buy-once video games) are played over and over. Books are cheap as hell. First you're acting like people should feel grateful to be able to shell out additional cost per month for a game they usually already paid full price for, then you act like this is the only way to entertain yourself? As you said, it's a disease, at least from that perspective. When the only way you can entertain yourself is with a game you have to get your monthly "fix" for (and you always need more), that's a drug.

Edit: Just so you know, you're talking to a person who used to drop wadges of cash on Magic in the early expansion days, as well as the Decipher Star Wars game. Stacks of cards, thousands of dollars, all worthless. It was like a drug then as well. I've been there, and I know it's a foolish thing. Meanwhile, guess what happened? The CCG business went belly-up after Pokemon. Only CCG left with any real sales is, ironically, the WoW card game, as even Magic's sales have tanked. If Pay-To-Play continues for computer games, we'll see another sunset before the reawakening.
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Only games can definitely be addictive, but thats the problem with the person not the game. Heck, the time I spent on WoW was while attending college full time, working over 30 hours a week, and still keeping up a relationship with my fiance. I just prioritized those things over all other things in my life.

Books are cheap, but it takes me a whole of 3 hours to read a book. I've read dozens, and at a couple dollars each the amount of cost it gave me per hour of enjoyment is pretty high still compared to what WoW was. CD's, I admit, is a good example, unless your one of those people who just buys a ton of CDs all the time (and I know a few). Even movies are pretty much a waste of money considering most people only watch them 3 times a year.. maybe.

Of course, collectible games falls into a whole other realm of reasoning. I was heavy into collectible gaming and I agree its a complete waste of money, unless you enjoy the act of collecting them. I mean most things are a waste of money when you get down to it. Everyone has things they spend money on that provides little but a slight psychological comfort.

I'm just trying to state that I dont think people should be grateful for paying monthly fees to a game, but I am grateful, personally. Thats why they are giving you a choice to pay or not to pay. I'm not naive to expect that in a capitalist society that I'm going to get the same advantages as someone who has more money than me. While I totally agree that is a completely messed up social construct, I understand that its part of the society I live in.

I mean, paying to play a video game isnt the only choice for entertainment, but its a choice, and its cheaper than a lot of hobbies other people become a part of. Some people may be okay with that, but the fact still remains that if someone is okay with paying it as a source of their entertainment, then theres no huge reason why thats offensive to me. I know people who will go out clubbing for a night and spend more in one night than I will in 4 months of paying for my video game. In some places, 1 pack of cigs is getting close to 10 bucks, and people still pay for them in truckloads.

Are you trying to say that video games in general are a bad source of entertainment? At least as a primary source of entertainment? If that be the case, then thats an entirely different subject alltogether.

uzor said:
THIS --^ is the center of our whole issue Neist. While some of us may dislike having to buy an MMOG twice, those types of games fit your premium price for a premium product analogy. This DOESN'T. This is a BASIC product for a PREMIUM price. This is an instanced game with a matchmaking service. The other free online games that you mention are exactly what this game should be lumped with. HL, HL2, CSS, the BattleField series, Diablo 1 & 2, etc. All of these games offer some online multiplay in an essentially instanced world. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HG:L IS!!!! Our problem with the situation is that FSS is trying to make this whole free online group a paid online group when it simply does not warrant it for the content and gameplay that we, as the consumer, receive.

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Part of this is because the fact that FSS is essentially trying to push into a genre of game thats somewhere between of what Diablo was, and a full blown out MMO. I'm just saying give them the benefit of the doubt and see how it goes a month or two after release. Good people are making the game and its very possible that they make a game that is above and beyond any instanced online game ever has been. Heck, it could redefine the entire concept of an instanced online game. A lot of this discussion is a moot point until we actually see the product and decide it for ourselves.

Heck, the place even has towns. Its far closer to what Guild Wars was than any of the games you listed. Even City of Heroes was instanced when you get to the root of it, because every zone had a cap, which once hit, would create a secondary version of the zone. And this is outside of the entire concept of their mission structure, which is completely instanced.
 
Neist said:
Books are cheap, but it takes me a whole of 3 hours to read a book. I've read dozens, and at a couple dollars each the amount of cost it gave me per hour of enjoyment is pretty high still compared to what WoW was. CD's, I admit, is a good example, unless your one of those people who just buys a ton of CDs all the time (and I know a few). Even movies are pretty much a waste of money considering most people only watch them 3 times a year.. maybe.
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So you can read a Stephen King novel, or a new Clancy, Grisham, or Chrichton release in 3 hours? Get this man a proofreading position! I think you're being a bit ridiculous here. Perhaps, possibly, you can polish off a Harry Potter book in 3 hours. In general, I think books are just as, if not more, immersing than video games. WoW is fine, but try an actual Tolkien title and tell me it zips by. I personally balk at anyone who buys egregious amounts of any kind of entertainment, including CDs, some of which they never even unwrap in their entire life. However, some of my CDs have more scratches on them then the inside of a coffin door of someone who was buried alive. Movies...meh. They have largely become wastes, unless you consider that many movies have been around, entertaining people for decades. The only cost considerations I would look into are the high price of movies tickets and the constantly changing standards upon which those movies are viewed.

I'm just trying to state that I dont think people should be grateful for paying monthly fees to a game, but I am grateful, personally. Thats why they are giving you a choice to pay or not to pay. I'm not naive to expect that in a capitalist society that I'm going to get the same advantages as someone who has more money than me. While I totally agree that is a completely messed up social construct, I understand that its part of the society I live in.

I mean, paying to play a video game isnt the only choice for entertainment, but its a choice, and its cheaper than a lot of hobbies other people become a part of. Some people may be okay with that, but the fact still remains that if someone is okay with paying it as a source of their entertainment, then theres no huge reason why thats offensive to me. I know people who will go out clubbing for a night and spend more in one night than I will in 4 months of paying for my video game. In some places, 1 pack of cigs is getting close to 10 bucks, and people still pay for them in truckloads.
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Without trying to sound overly out-of-touch, I think most people will agree that the value returned from going out to a club, socializing, and having probably a memorable experience is a far better cost ratio than the concept of paying monthly to, for all intents and purposes, press buttons. The characters, items, and world aren't real. Now, before you accuse me of attacking video games, I personally prefer the latter for my free time. All it comes down to is that titles like Half Life, Counter Strike, Diablo 2, Age of Empires, Doom, Starcraft, Warcraft, the whole Battlefield series, Quake 2 and 3, and the whole Civ series were games that were best sellers, making huge amounts of money, and were all one-purchase games that became so loved because of their outstanding value. The amount of time you got out of them compared to the one-time purchase price was staggering. Once you start making the game the same as your utilities bill, that prestige goes right out the window.
 
Aelfgeft said:
So you can read a Stephen King novel, or a new Clancy, Grisham, or Chrichton release in 3 hours? Get this man a proofreading position! I think you're being a bit ridiculous here. Perhaps, possibly, you can polish off a Harry Potter book in 3 hours. In general, I think books are just as, if not more, immersing than video games. WoW is fine, but try an actual Tolkien title and tell me it zips by. I personally balk at anyone who buys egregious amounts of any kind of entertainment, including CDs, some of which they never even unwrap in their entire life. However, some of my CDs have more scratches on them then the inside of a coffin door of someone who was buried alive. Movies...meh. They have largely become wastes, unless you consider that many movies have been around, entertaining people for decades. The only cost considerations I would look into are the high price of movies tickets and the constantly changing standards upon which those movies are viewed.
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Eh, I'm just a rather big book worm. I read the LotR books in 2 days when I was 12, heh. I work full time at a library for a living. The only book I couldnt get through very quickly was Moby Dick, mostly for its language and horrible paragraph structure. But everything else, yes, I agree on.

Aelfgeft said:
Without trying to sound overly out-of-touch, I think most people will agree that the value returned from going out to a club, socializing, and having probably a memorable experience is a far better cost ratio than the concept of paying monthly to, for all intents and purposes, press buttons. The characters, items, and world aren't real. Now, before you accuse me of attacking video games, I personally prefer the latter for my free time. All it comes down to is that titles like Half Life, Counter Strike, Diablo 2, Age of Empires, Doom, Starcraft, Warcraft, the whole Battlefield series, Quake 2 and 3, and the whole Civ series were games that were best sellers, making huge amounts of money, and were all one-purchase games that became so loved because of their outstanding value. The amount of time you got out of them compared to the one-time purchase price was staggering. Once you start making the game the same as your utilities bill, that prestige goes right out the window.
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Well, a lot of those other things outside of video games can be cost prohibitive, even comparatively after the cost of a computer. Thats one of the main reasons I'm not involved with most of them anymore. I'm married and the money just isnt there. But yes, the social experience is far better, but in essence your paying for that social experience.

I mean, I'd love the game to turn into another Starcraft or Fallout, but thats asking for a Grand Slam amoung video game titles. Plus, there is a rather growing trend in game development anymore to have very large development teams. Unfortunately that just drives up costs as well.
 
Like many others have said, if you don't want to pay for it, then don't play it.

If I like the Beta, I for one don't care if I have to pay.
 
Neist said:
I mean, I'd love the game to turn into another Starcraft or Fallout, but thats asking for a Grand Slam amoung video game titles. Plus, there is a rather growing trend in game development anymore to have very large development teams. Unfortunately that just drives up costs as well.
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What's wrong with asking for a Grand Slam? I'd say Oblivion met that title merely a year ago, and is asking for a grand slam a year too much to ask? I'd say let's demand MORE grand slams, and LESS churned out worthless sequels. Wait...that's beginning to sound like what the movie industry needs to do. Well, I guess both have some work on their hands!

Plus, the size of the development teams means shit since lots of those developers still get the shaft when it comes to payment. I mainly comes down to the publisher, and their inflated licensing and advertising costs. Anyways, being a Reaganite I'm not going to attack capitalism, but the rising popularity of MMOs is largely due to corporate notice that these kinds of games are absolute gold mines for profit. Blizzard managed to make a game that, 7 years later, still has many active servers that no one has needed to pay a dime for, and in response that game is the best selling game of all time (I think they're at 17 million sold). If they could do it before, they can do it again. SSI made a fantastic series in the Gold Box Games nearly 20 years ago, and once in a great while a company like Bioware reproduces it. They need to focus on making games that sell because of their appeal, not on making games that simply produce an endless stream of revenue. The "Invisible Hand" theory dictates that if they do concentrate on the former focus, the fruits of the latter will follow.
 
aeonrevolution said:
When is the Beta? :eek: :eek: :eek:
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Rough guess? Fairly soon. The latest version of the Mythos client was internally labeled as Hellgate London. Plus, Mythos is entering Beta which means at least a chunk of the network kinks were worked out.

I bet we'll hear something in a month or so.
 
Neist said:
Rough guess? Fairly soon. The latest version of the Mythos client was internally labeled as Hellgate London. Plus, Mythos is entering Beta which means at least a chunk of the network kinks were worked out.

I bet we'll hear something in a month or so.
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I will wait at least a couple months to (probably) get the final version (it does sound like fun and all, pricing aside), but do you have any ins for some fellow [H]ers on the beta? :D :cool:

 
uzor said:
I will wait at least a couple months to (probably) get the final version (it does sound like fun and all, pricing aside), but do you have any ins for some fellow [H]ers on the beta? :D :cool:

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Check your Pm's. :p

Btw:
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/hellgate-london/786714p1.html

For $9.99 a month, you can subscribe to Elite, which will give you access to ongoing content (more on this in a bit), about twelve or more characters, a larger stash that can be shared between characters, a level cap that increases as content is released, access to a special train that takes you to Elite areas, and the ability to form guilds and choose different gameplay modes (PvP, Hardcore mode, and so on). "Ongoing content" is made up of stuff like new locations, quests, enemies, item drops, player housing, and even character classes. Flagship is estimating that about 40% of the development team will be focused on just creating new content for Elite subscribers.
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You dont get full level cap? Okay thats kinda ridiculous.
 
uzor said:
Just finished reading the article finally, and now I'm bummed all over again. I really was looking forward to this. :(

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Yea, I can understand some of the reasoning, but some of it just seems marketing. :(
 
Flagship is estimating that about 40% of the development team will be focused on just creating new content for Elite subscribers.
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This is the reason you would be paying 10 bucks a month. They're keeping additional staff online to support the game after release other than a few techies that release a few patches to fix bugs.

10 bucks a month is chump change, if you have 60 to spend on the game then you should by all means have at least another 10-30 within 3 months to play that long.
We're talking:
3 gallons of gas,
an order for 2 from any fast food joint,
1 ticket to a movie (in some places), or
an 8 year olds weekly allowance
and you only pay it once for an entire month. What's the big deal even if they didn't originally plan it? Now at least you'll know they're backing their product by keeping a full-time staff on hand to support the game.
 
b14z3 said:
This is the reason you would be paying 10 bucks a month. They're keeping additional staff online to support the game after release other than a few techies that release a few patches to fix bugs.

10 bucks a month is chump change, if you have 60 to spend on the game then you should by all means have at least another 10-30 within 3 months to play that long.
We're talking:
3 gallons of gas,
an order for 2 from any fast food joint,
1 ticket to a movie (in some places), or
an 8 year olds weekly allowance
and you only pay it once for an entire month. What's the big deal even if they didn't originally plan it? Now at least you'll know they're backing their product by keeping a full-time staff on hand to support the game.
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Aside from the cost, it's the principle of the thing. I refuse to pay extra for something that should (and always has, until now) come with the base to begin with. As it has been described, the free online is a fucking joke. It's half-assed at best, and they 9as well as some of us) know it. As more and more "online stuff" in games goes to a subscription format, we start getting less and less for our gaming dollar. And this is where I'm drawing the line.

 
uzor said:
Aside from the cost, it's the principle of the thing. I refuse to pay extra for something that should (and always has, until now) come with the base to begin with. As it has been described, the free online is a fucking joke. It's half-assed at best, and they 9as well as some of us) know it. As more and more "online stuff" in games goes to a subscription format, we start getting less and less for our gaming dollar. And this is where I'm drawing the line.

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I agree with you, im kida bummed out now, i was hoping the "free" would be better, but i guess they wanna market it like WoW, pay per play. Wheres the future of online gaming heading to? Whats next pay $10 month to play Halflife2 & CSS... Paying for internet access i understand, paying for the game and its expansion i understand, but paying to play the game online i can never wrap my head around...
 
Well I feel sorry for you guys who can't pay $10 a month.

I guess if I were into MMO's and already paid into games I might be mad, but I think WoW and the likes are lame as hell.

So when is this being released :D

August still?
 
^alpha will probably start early next month, so (if everything else is on schedule) we'll see the game in stores sometime in Aug-Nov (i hope... it's been too long already)
 
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