Stop Making Should-Be Achievement Gear.."Optional Gear"

[BigRed5392]

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Explain older MMO, or even free to play donation only MuD?

cash shops didn't always exist yet mmo came out with plenty of extra content.

It's not complicated to explain. Older MMO's and MUDs didn't cost anywhere near what a AAA+ MMO costs today and the expected return on investment wasn't as high. Graphics were cruder and simpler. Modeling and texturing took less time and thus less money to create. Voice acting and cinematics were used sparringly if at all. Investors expected less return (but still a profit) from their investment. That's part of the reason why you don't see many MMO's pop up anymore. It's incredibly expensive now compared to back in the day. Especially now that voice acting is often expected, which can astronomically increase the costs of making a game.

In 2004, WoW cost 63 million to launch and over 200 MILLION over its first 4 years to maintain and develop. In 2011, SWTOR cost over 200 MILLION DOLLARS just to launch. Compare that to the 6 million it cost to develop Ultima Online or the 3 million it cost to make Everquest. That's an incredibly high financial risk to make with no guarantee of success and a return on investment. Making expansions is obviously cheaper but still very expensive. Even moreso today than in MMO's of the past because of the voice acting alone. Add in professional orchestras and vocalists to perform your epic soundtrack and you're talking about a great deal more money needed today than 10-20 years ago.

Here's an example from 1998's Baldur's Gate. One of the earlier pc games I saw with any sort of cinematic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYoRmGHIxA4

Compare THAT primitive thing to the cinematics we see today and tell me how much of a difference in cost it was to make them.

if you go to a money app that maths out inflation it is about the same. As in the 90s the doller was worth more.

they used all that stuff in gaming since a long time, it just came out 8bit for sound quality so no that isn't even a recent thing.

ff11 isn't that old of a game either and still running, had a smaller player base and never did a cash shop.

cash shop is used to supply the cash shop, sub fee is used on the game and cash shop. Adding too much to the cash shop, and not in game isn't good for business, as it can drive people away.


you sound like the "silly" person who works as ubisoft who told players when they found out it takes 2 years or 700 to do/get everything, that they not suppose to. It is a dumb move.

That's not how the development process works.



That's not your decision to make.

They could have never added a cash shop, and you would never have gotten things like Minfilia's Outfit. The content patches might have been smaller or have less voice acting or shorter cinematics due to not having the extra income generated by the cash shop as well.

People need to stop trying to be armchair developers. While you have every right to give feedback and share your opinions with the developers, if you haven't even worked in the MMO business to any degree, you aren't really qualified to tell those who are developing a highly successful MMO what they are "doing wrong" in how they generate and manage revenue.

you clearly have no idea how stuff works....

at any point they could have a side quest for minfilias outfit. The only armchair dev I see is you, as you clearly have no basis in how stuff works.