if you were to make an MMO, a WoW clone...

Parmenides

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I know, you probably wouldn't to begin with.... but if you did...
Would it be better to begin it as a $15 subscription first, then make it Free to play later?
Or make it Free to play to begin with?
 
Make nothing because gamers are tired of WoW clones. Or just take it to consoles as lots of them haven't experienced WoW. If you were to make it on consoles, F2P after initial purchase would be fine as you can pull the plug on online games there without much protest if it tanked.
 
There are a lot of factors here to consider. If you aren't already established at a datacenter (or have your own peerage) you're likely going to have to come up with a subscription based service in the beginning just to cover server/bandwidth costs. Initial box sales and expansions are another consideration here, to make up for your start up costs and losses during development time.

If you have prior experience in the hosting market, free for play is going to be the superior business plan. Free for play with micro transactions plays a lot better to the human condition -- greed and envy sells almost as well as sex. "The first hit is always free."

Really though, the subscription choices are the least you have to be concerned about making a WoW clone. Good graphics artists are hard to come by, as are developers that actually match the skill set touted by their resume.
 
Consider how well EA / Bioware did with their WoW clone (SW:ToR), I don't think you have good chances in getting people to pay $15/mo in subscription.

I agree with "cageymaru", you'd be better off developing something other than a WoW clone, as that market is saturated.
 
Consider how well EA / Bioware did with their WoW clone (SW:ToR), I don't think you have good chances in getting people to pay $15/mo in subscription.

I agree with "cageymaru", you'd be better off developing something other than a WoW clone, as that market is saturated.


WoW clone is way over used. there are A LOT of aspects of SWTOR that make it significantly different from WoW.





anyways. i think 15$ is kind of a bigger deal nowadays.

f2p models are more and more successful.
 
First I would try and figure out what WoW did right? and no "people are stupid" or "dumbed down" are not legitimate answers.

What makes WoW rake in the subs even today?
 
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I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I would do if I made an MMO.

It would be a premium title, pay to play. I would not use the Free-2-Play model because F2P means that some players need to 'Pay-2-Win' to provide income to the developers, which I don't believe in.
 
First I would try and figure out what WoW did right? and no "people are stupid" or "dumbed down" are not legitimate answers.

What makes WoW rake in the subs even today?

Because they have years of time tied up into the characters. The characters are an extension of them as a trusted dog would be. And they like playing dress up doll with them also so ponying up for things such as mounts for $25 isn't a big deal.

If Rift had come first and WoW second, Trion Worlds would be in Blizzard's shoes today. It's all about innovating; even by copying many ideas from different sources if you can't think of them on your own. MMO's nowadays just copy WoW in general or have one different trick from WoW and call themselves different.

All it does is make them all seem stale.
 
What about something in between? I always thought $15 is a little high. I would be more willing to pay $7.99 or something similar. Not sure if that would make as much money as F2P or not
 
You make a game without classes, something like Ultima Online, where everyone has access to the same skills etc and can have identical characters. Paid model and f2p combined

And then setup tournaments/events with actual prizes for anyone that isn't F2P or the like, if the game is successful give away video cards etc. at random or however gives people a reason to just jump in and play. Or allow people to "wager" against eachother eg. 5 v 5 and everyone puts up a few bucks max(keep the need to cheat down) and of course have it supervised by a GM for anything fishy.

I find when there's a small real life financial risk it makes games a lot more fun.
Eg: UO you could ebay items for cash, so if you had a keep deed you were trying to place you made sure you had a good squad trying to protect you as I recall somehow people I knew always knew when people were placing deeds and where they were so we could attempt to kill them. I think a keep would sell for like $150 back then if placed.


If BF3 was like that I would for sure play it more, rather than let it collect dust because it's a boring been there done that multiplayer game, oh yay I level up to unlock a gun..meh. Get some paid advertising and do what blacklight retribution is doing with tickets for cash prizes over a month just for playing a match.
 
What about something in between? I always thought $15 is a little high. I would be more willing to pay $7.99 or something similar. Not sure if that would make as much money as F2P or not

Agreed. $5-8.

I wouldn't make a WoW clone. I'd take the good stuff from UO, DAoC, EQ, pre-FUBAR SWG and mash them together.
 
First I would try and figure out what WoW did right? and no "people are stupid" or "dumbed down" are not legitimate answers.

What makes WoW rake in the subs even today?

Part of its success is that Wow was the first mmo for many players. Aside from that Wow built a giant world that felt alive and was fun to explore. Places like Westfall, Darkshire, Stranglethorn Vale, etc... were amazingly atmospheric and fun to quest in.

There was also a good dose of humor and lore in the quests, lots of interesting items, epics and trinkets as random world drops, challenging 5 man dungeons, 40 man raid content. World pvp was fun in Vanilla, shortly after they added interesting instanced pvp.

Their main success was making the game fun for hardcore players and casual players. You could solo most of the leveling content or you could group up with your buddies and level together, either way was fun to do.

They also have the best loot system in any game I've played, it feels very satisfying gearing up your character.
 
make a game with open ended gameplay based around player created content/interaction/PvP

like DayZ, Eve Online

can have PvE content but create the game in a way where that is not the focus because PvE players will always burn through PvE content unless PvE is designed around some stupidly long grind which is an antiquated gameplay model in today's marketplace
 
I wouldn't paint myself into a corner and ruin PVE by limiting/balancing against stupid-ass PVP. I play for a story and an experience, so it would focus on being EPIC, things YOU do in the world CHANGE it, if you kill a big dragon or blow up the mountain fortress, then the world actually reflect that instead of boringly remaining static and unaffected.

I would want players to feel powerful so no wimpy 1 animation only fireballs and such, they would grow bigger and more powerful as you used skills ala Secret of Mana, and if you had a crit it would be a special animation like in Chrono Trigger and be totally badass.

Also i would want people to be able to combine their skills/powers like again in Chrono Trigger, have a big fire breathing dragon thats hard for your group to kill? Get 2 or 3 wizards/mages/whatever together and have them start the battle by channeling all their mana to their ice spells into a massive focused ice attack that totally debuffs the dragon and you start the fight with mebby 10-20% damage done to him already.

A big world like WOW ok, Wow's battle system? NO! we spend more time in mmos batteling then anythign else and that is the part that never changes! arrgh! boring! How about Fable 1's battle system? that was AWSOME ('specially on PC) or AT LEAST spice it up for a change!
 
I don't think free to play works with big budget MMO's. Either you balance the game so that you don't need spend any money to be competive(just like LoL or Tribes) or you have to spend money and everyone hates it. Both ways will not bring in the money needed to support a player base.

It will be interesting to see how GW2 does. I have it preordered yet will be spending $0 the cash shop. If this hurts me in any way I will drop the game like a rock.
 
I would make an MMO based on the Mass effect universe using the ME3 multiplayer gameplay. With more class customization, more skills, drops and stuff, I could really see it taking off. For the sake of pvp, they could tone down all crowd control. It would require skills, could have decent role playing elements, would open up lot of unseen ME lore ( volus, elcor, yargh, etc town and civilization), competitive pvp while still using drops (weapons/armors with more interesting stats). Dungeons would be missions that could also be done solo. The rewards would be a little less interesting solo than with a group of 4. PVP would take the form of 4v4 battles in decent sized maps or PlayersVenemies survival modes like in me3.

not really a wow clone, but hey i can dream that EA wouldnt fuck this up with day1 dlc, premium packs, monthly sub, 69.99 price tag, 15 bucks dlc every 3 months, etc.
 
f2p is the way to go now days. people spend so much money on f2p mmos its ridiculus. i dont really understand but that is whats happening atm.
 
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