Why pay a subscription?

[Shiyo]

OP

Sarcastic/trolly, but I agree. This is what most people do with WOW now, they sub for the expansion release, play for 1-2 months, quit, come back again and resub for the next content update, repeat until forever. Doesn't really make much sense why MMO dev's design games like this and make monthly sub games easily "beatable", you're relying on the player constantly subbing but your hardcore playerbase won't. So why bother?

Nerfing old content when new content comes out is a HUGE mistake.

Blizzard tried that model and they haven't posted a single net-positive quarter for sub growth/retention ever since. Not one. They can't keep up with the demand for content, and they have a LOT more money to dump into their MMO than SE does for theirs.

Do what XI and vanilla/TBC did for years: Build on your content. Don't make it obsolete every patch.

Exactly, there's literally statistical revenue evidence showing that copying this, and many other things from WOW is a surefire way to LOSE subs, not gain them. Thus less money.

[LloydShade]

I read that[...] You will be able to do the whole game solo or with the duty finder, no need for guilds,friends,or groups[...]

You need to define what is "do the whole game", which is pretty much the definition of playing. What is playing a MMO for you?


One does not play a MMO like he/she plays a regular singleplayer game or a game with a multiplayer option. When I start playing a single player game, I play to "beat" the game. In other words, I play until I reach the inevitable ending, which are usually marked by the end credits. Multiplayer options can sometime bring life to the game a while longer, but it has no real end goal, you play until you get tired and stop to move on another game.

A MMO is not about beating the game as you can only beat content that is currently available since the game is expected to take years before reaching a conclusion (and often, there is no such thing as an ending). Honestly, if all you can think of a MMO is to clear content with other players, your vision is flawed. Your money would actually be better invested in seeking multiplayer titles and their sequels. It's cheaper to spend about $60 every year for the next Call of Duty sequel and play it with your friends and other like minded individuals. Each game brings novelties (or differences), better graphics and new goals.

A MMO is a journey. It's essentially a job of its own (it's just that instead of awarding money, it awards entertainment time). You are meant to keep subscribing and to essentially spend time living in the virtual world, meeting people, making friends and facing challenges. In my opinion, the reason MMOs really begins at max level is because while you are levelling, you are spending most of your time building your character. At max level, you are meant to spent most of your time socializing and playing with others. Key differences between a Call of Duty's session and a MMO's session is that while in Call of Duty, you will always be playing on a map to defeat the opponents, sometime you may log into the MMO and just spend some time talking or doing pointless things with your friends. Other times, you may log in and attempt to get an better/new item. On both games, tasks will eventually become monotonous and it's the other people that will bring the spark of novelty here and there (or annoyance), yet the MMO has virtually a never ending content because players are encouraged to do content as they please, while in Call of Duty for instance, you are encouraged to get better and better and seek the number 1 spot of each matches.

It all comes down to what do you want. If you play to clear content as fast as possible and wait for more challenges after your done, your money could be better spent elsewhere. For $15/month, every 4 months of MMO subscription time, you could afford a brand new $60 title. It all comes down to if you prefer spending $180 on a subscription for a single MMO (knowing that new content is not guaranteed each month) or spend the same $180 on at least 3 brand new titles, which you know for sure, will be different games.

MMOs have always been about experiencing a journey in a virtual world full of other players. Trying to play solo only is just misplaced money.

My opinion,
Lloyd Shade

Note: I never played any Call of Duty titles. It's just that if you check Wikipedia, they have a solid history of releasing a new game each year.

[Miley]

MMOs have always been about experiencing a journey in a virtual world full of other players. Trying to play solo only is just misplaced money.

Yet you can level 1-50 in this game never grouping up, To beat the story mode you only need to group up a handful of times just to beat a primal of a dungeon.
I don't need to be schooled on what a MMO is or isn't. How much interaction does the average player have with other players in this game? The quick primal or dungeon run to progress the game or passing by other players as you run to the next fate?

[Devilray]

In a few months, everyone is going to be full myth geared thanks to the "social welfare" tokens given out by doing AK all the time. And then getting relics will not be an issue anymore. Everyone will be geared, then they will release harder content that will make all the myth gear people outdated. This is only good if they don't release easy to get gear to gear up casuals for the new content. It is pretty disheartening when they basically devalue all past effort and subscription time you payed for and give new players a free ride to the position that took you a lot of effort. FFXI was very good for keeping all the gear relevant (until Adoulin).... and honestly now FFXI has died in my eyes. They turned FFXI's system into the welfare system and de-valued relics and mythics. You should have seen how many angry people were when they had the nerve to out-class the weapons that had been relevant for MANY years. It was honestly a move by SE to get people to leave and go to FF14 because FF11's "fate" wall destroying events and content updates are in the same type of model FF14 uses now.

Edit: Especially since this game, you can level multiple jobs on a character, there is no reason to outdate so many aspects of the character you have built with so many different jobs. You could have put a lot of effort into many different jobs and that much more effort is devalued by content updates that release overpowered gear.

TL;DR: SE, Don't give new players and casuals a free ride to new content. That is UNFAIR! New players and casuals have to work to get to the new content in my opinion. If they release easily-obtained gear that outclasses myth gear, it makes all your queuing and AK runs kinda pointless. Waste of time and subscription time!! You payed to put yourself through suffering only to get it outdated in a few months. Most retarded gaming model ever.

[Rikudou-Sennin]

I don't mind the $12.99/month for this game. I also love how it's so easy I can solo everything with just a duty finder and random people who may or may not know how to play. I hated having to get a guild in WoW, requiring TS/Vent and scheduling raids where you had to sign up for a spot. That was NOT fun. It felt a lot like a job you don't get paid for. It took me a year to get T1 armor fighting 4+ other same classes for it. Not to mention that every guild had a loot system and if you didn't raid enough you just weren't getting anything.

Screw all of that.. if this game ever turns into another WoW I'm out. There is a reason why this game picked up so fast. There are FAR fewer hard-core players than casual players. Casual will win.. sorry, if you don't like that then you can head to WoW and I promise you'll love that if you love taking years to get gear.

[C-croft]

I don't mind the $12.99/month for this game. I also love how it's so easy I can solo everything with just a duty finder and random people who may or may not know how to play. I hated having to get a guild in WoW, requiring TS/Vent and scheduling raids where you had to sign up for a spot. That was NOT fun. It felt a lot like a job you don't get paid for. It took me a year to get T1 armor fighting 4+ other same classes for it. Not to mention that every guild had a loot system and if you didn't raid enough you just weren't getting anything.

Screw all of that.. if this game ever turns into another WoW I'm out. There is a reason why this game picked up so fast. There are FAR fewer hard-core players than casual players. Casual will win.. sorry, if you don't like that then you can head to WoW and I promise you'll love that if you love taking years to get gear.

The game is so far removed from Vanilla. Gear is far easier to obtain now. Because the content became that much easier. Basically, you spoof your iLVL, get into the WoW DF queue up for faceroll dungeons and get tokens. The final raid for end game (at the time when I quit)Dragon soul, had a DF mode and was so easy only half the group was required to participate. Then you would get your welfare epics and more tokens. Then you were more than capable of going to normal mode gear wise. Heroic was a bit more challenging in that you had mechanics that require you to pay attention. As long as you can click a button or not stand in fire, you were good.

[Rikudou-Sennin]

They needed to make WoW easier. I remember being in a raid of 40 ppl in Molten Core when the game was young. If you lost just 1-2 people that was it, the raid was over. Try getting 40 people to work together.. or even finding 40 people who can spend hours upon hours in one dungeon. It got so ludacris with the time needed they actually started assigning dungeon ID's so it would be a work in progress and you could spend 3-5 days in one dungeon. It was non-sense. I can seriously remember gear taking a year or more to get. Then they would patch and BAM, in one second you're tier gear was now junk. It took you several months to a year or so to get a full high end tier set and then it was made garbage in one content update. I wasted a lot of my life with that game. I played for four years and never obtained anything better than partial T2 armor.

I'm happy in FFXIV RR that I already have relic gear. It's supposed to be fun, not make me want to throw a cup up against the wall.

[C-croft]

They needed to make WoW easier. I remember being in a raid of 40 ppl in Molten Core when the game was young. If you lost just 1-2 people that was it, the raid was over. Try getting 40 people to work together.. or even finding 40 people who can spend hours upon hours in one dungeon. It got so ludacris with the time needed they actually started assigning dungeon ID's so it would be a work in progress and you could spend 3-5 days in one dungeon. It was non-sense. I can seriously remember gear taking a year or more to get. Then they would patch and BAM, in one second you're tier gear was now junk. It took you several months to a year or so to get a full high end tier set and then it was made garbage in one content update. I wasted a lot of my life with that game. I played for four years and never obtained anything better than partial T2 armor.

I'm happy in FFXIV RR that I already have relic gear. It's supposed to be fun, not make me want to throw a cup up against the wall.

Yeah, Vanilla was bad in that sense. But easy and trivial are two separate things.

[The-Alchemist]

They needed to make WoW easier. I remember being in a raid of 40 ppl in Molten Core when the game was young. If you lost just 1-2 people that was it, the raid was over. Try getting 40 people to work together.. or even finding 40 people who can spend hours upon hours in one dungeon. It got so ludacris with the time needed they actually started assigning dungeon ID's so it would be a work in progress and you could spend 3-5 days in one dungeon. It was non-sense. I can seriously remember gear taking a year or more to get. Then they would patch and BAM, in one second you're tier gear was now junk. It took you several months to a year or so to get a full high end tier set and then it was made garbage in one content update. I wasted a lot of my life with that game. I played for four years and never obtained anything better than partial T2 armor.

I'm happy in FFXIV RR that I already have relic gear. It's supposed to be fun, not make me want to throw a cup up against the wall.

40 man raids are epic and the casual players ruined it.. Waahhhh too many people too hard to work together with 40 Wahhh takes too long to complete waaahhh only some guilds could finish it.. Now we are st stuck with mostly 8 mans which are hardly epic