http://www.joystiq.com/2007/01/25/lord-of-the-rings-online-rewards-earlier-adopters/

So what do people think when it comes to paying so much up front to never having to pay another monthly fee again?


Does anyone think there will ever be a MMO that gets people hooked enough that they just know they are going to be playing it for years to come?

Played the beta, and have to say that there is no way I'd pay retail, let alone $200 for this game.

It's good, not GREAT, but good. Nothing really new here for the most part. Combat is uninspired. The overinstancing is annoying.

There's much better MMO entertainment out there than this game. Even better, give it a few months, there's even more coming down the pipe.

I will be going with the 9.99 special... Wife is still very heavy into Eq2 and that's where I will stay mostly. I love LOTR though. IMHO best game on the market. Love the slow pace and the crafting. Being able to still and chill playing the lute or what ever is a blast too.

.....There's much better MMO entertainment out there than this game. Even better, give it a few months, there's even more coming down the pipe.

what do you speak of? I havent been keeping up with games coming out.

Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Warhammer 40000 Online, Tabula Rasa, Fallen Earth, just to name a few. Wait a bit longer and you'll have Fallout Online, Star Trek Online, Vampire/Werewolf and Stargate Worlds. There's LOADS of MMO goodness coming down the pipe. :)

Bin has just one opinion there are others out there. I played the beta for quite some time and since early on. It has good points and bad points but it is far far FAR more polished than VG. I wish I could visit "gaming forums" from work so I could link a post on vgflames.com that speaks about how the population of VG has declined sharply in 3 months and how many have gone back to other games. Even the die hard fanbois of VG are admitting the flop but to maintain the relevance of this post here *smile* there is a discussion inside that thread that talks about LOTOR from several other people.

I had no doubts VG was going to flop; I just didn't know it would happen so fast :p

I played some LOTRO last night. Its ok. I always love starting a new game and getting those first few fast levels. Once the "grind" starts you find out how much you really like the game. If you pre-order, your monthly fee is $9.95. Thats not too bad for an MMO, especially one that seems pretty polished.

My opinion (from reading people's reviews and playing a bit myself) is: If you haven't played an MMORPG in a while and want to pick up a game on release (always fun being one of hundreds of newbs rather than being the only newb around because you started the game a year after release), LOTRO may be worth picking up. If you're a WOW player and are looking for something "different", you probably won't be happy with LORTO. So much stuff in the game feels just like WOW.

I played WOW for a few months. It just didn't have much holding value with me. Neither did EQ2. I had fun with EQ2, though, because I started it when the game released. My friends and I were all part of the race to level 20.

Thats one of the reasons I'm thiniking about getting LOTRO on release. I've always enjoyed being on the forefront of a new game. Being able to experience new stuff as it happens. I like having to figure stuff out and not having everyone and their brother know how to do it because all they had to do was go to some web page that tells them exactly how to do it.

I started playing EQ a year after release. This was pre-Kunark, but I felt like a "newb" walking around seeing all these level 50 players in Planar armor. When Kunark came out I got to experience that "new content" rush, and from then on I've always loved that.. exploring virgin lands..


~Akom

Me personally, I'm looking forward to how Relic handles Warhammer 40k Online (yes, it has been announced). I'm getting sick and tired of how many "Fantasy RPG Online" games there are. Pretty much Every. Freaking. MMO. is an online fantasy setting. Same for Pirates of the Burning Sea, at least that game is getting away from that setting.

Tabula Rasa(sp) is one I'm looking forward to for much the same reasons; I'm getting tired of fantasy RPGs.

What I really wanted to know is if anyone would be willing to pay that for ANY MMO they are playing now. IE would any WOW players atm be willing to spend 200 bucks right now for a lifetime subscription? Does anyone think that any MMO will ever been grand enough to justify dropping a instant 200 dollars down on.



I personally think there will never been a MMO out that can justify that just because I cant be guaranteed that the population will stay in tact. It might be the most amazing game ever and I have no worries that I will want to play it for years to come but if there is only 1000 people still playing it after a couple months, it kills the game and its worth.

Hehe, Vanguard is far from perfect, BUT if you get out and check the world out, and I mean REALLY check it out, you'll see the love that went into it. Sigil makes no excuses for the state of the game. They know it needs work, and they've said so. There are some annoying bugs that rear their ugly head once in awhile. However, I still feel it is one of the better MMO's out there.

I never said LOTRO was bad, it's just not great. When I started playing the beta (have character from each and every class), it started out fun, what with seeing Gandalf at the beginning and all. I at first felt like this was going to be interesting. But between the over instancing (a building should NOT be an instance!), and just the "grind" feel to the game, I just found it wasn't for me. VG right now provides the balance of not too easy, yet not too hard for me. There's always something to do, and the character development (not to mention the unique player classes) leaves a LOT for me to do.

Does this mean I won't jump ship? LOL, I didn't say that! Age of Conan still looks REALLY tasty. Tabula Rasa has my interest. Fallen Earth looks ok. Stargate Worlds...I WANT it to work ( I love Stargate, can't you tell?), but it's too early to comment. Then there's games like Hellgate London (/drool) that will implement MMO aspects (go check it out! Google is your friend!)

I can see why people are getting sick of the high fantasy genre, and I think that once I'm done with VG, it'll probably be awhile before I pick up another high fantasy MMO.

I have been hoping and dreaming that they would release a Shadowrun MMO. There will be a Shadowrun game, however it appears to be more of an FPS than an RPG. If I could get my hands on a decent open ended Cyberpunk MMO (with a skill based system! Levels and classes make Baby Binuven cry!) with a touch of fantasy (Shadowrun had Magic, Monsters and certain types of fantasy races IE: Trolls, Dwarves, Elves, Orcs), I think I could truly be content.

The main ones I'm watching seriously right now is Vanguard (this game will blossom into a fantastic MMO when they are done with it), Age of Conan for the DX10 graphics, the M Rating (hooray for boobies!) and the unique combat/spell system, and Tabula Rasa, just cause there's been an ass load of work put into it by none other than "Lord British" Richard Garriott (the guy completely rebuilt the game from scratch due to his not being happy with it....GUTSY, but good for the customer).

It's my hope that eventually an MMO will come out that will cater to all aspects of game play. You won't buy a game so much as you will buy access to a world in which you literally pick the type and style of game you want to play. I have it in my head folks but for some reason Mr. Smedley isn't calling! :D

Absolutely I would spend it. $180 is how much I pay a year now; that's only $19 more dollars for a lifetime? I'd be stupid otherwise. But then I'm also someone who prefers to pay for subs a year at a time instead of monthly too. $200 is a drop in the bucket for entertainment costs these days. That wouldn't cover me taking my family to the movie more than twice a year. We easily spend $100 a pop for each we make to the theatre.

Even if you only played the game for 2 years you'd be saving a huge chunk of change. Look at how long EQ1 has been around; EQ2 and WoW are nearly 3 years old and EQ2 keeps raising station pass rates and I bet soon regular subs. I'd happily pay one price for WoW and be done with it; I can see me still playing WoW for many months yet.

$200 is great if you use it. However, what happens if:

a) You get tired of the game after 3 months?

and/or

b) Turbine runs out of money. Doesn't anyone else find it odd that a game company would cut off potential future profits like this? Doesn't it seem a little extreme? It certainly isn't any secret that Turbine isn't doing so hot due to the suckage that is D&D Online. What happens to you if they tank?

Maybe I'm just over cautious, but alarm bells go off when gaming companies offer a "too good to be true" deal.

I agree Binu, that and how many accounts get banned and such for stupid reasons, IE accidently trading with someone who dupes money or some such thing. Thats 200 bucks bye bye.

I guess Im jsut someone who likes paying 15 bucks a month and no more just to make sure I still want to play the next month. My subscriptions I cancel every single month after I reopen my accounts just becaues I want the option of quiitting without having to remember to cancel my account before I get charged for another month I didnt want to play.

This is the link I was talking about in my first reply. http://www.vgflames.com/showthread.php?t=929

Personally, I don't like VG (or when certain people constantly promote other forums about it!), but that's an awful proof of its decline. All it proves is that people level slower as they've played longer... just like in every MMO ever made, ever.

You have a problem with promoting other forums? What about links to websites specifically fansites that have forums? That's a bit insecure isn't it? I guess I should stop linking posts made on this site on other forums I visit too. I'd hate for you to not like that either!

I didn't say the post "proved the decline" I said there was a post that mentioned the LOTOR experiences of others that happened to be about the decline and what I consider flop of VG.

I wish I could visit "gaming forums" from work so I could link a post on vgflames.com that speaks about how the population of VG has declined sharply in 3 months and how many have gone back to other games.

...

I had no doubts VG was going to flop; I just didn't know it would happen so fast :p
I was responding to that. The graph is completely misleading, since it doesn't even claim to represent population, but instead it shows how many people gained a level in each 4 day window. So, as the game is out long and more people are at higher level, the average level is gained slower. Amazing.

Like I said, I don't even like VG. I was just stricken by the absurdity of that graph.

You have a problem with promoting other forums? What about links to websites specifically fansites that have forums? That's a bit insecure isn't it? I guess I should stop linking posts made on this site on other forums I visit too. I'd hate for you to not like that either!
Something tells me you don't have a sig over there with a referral link back here. :rolleyes:

That's true, but there's a reason for that. Here we get nothing for referrals, there we do, I did it long enough to get enough for my title and stopped caring :D. This is the one of but a few forums I can still visit from work; I don't have the time to keep up with VG or EQ2flames anymore. But I do actually link posts from this site quite regularly on other forums I visit, the people who post here have half a brain most of the time.

As long as the game will be around for the 3 years it takes to recoup that initial cost LOTr is worth it IMHO. As long as it doesn't take a AC2 nose dive that is. EQ2 would be worth it.

I have to be honest, until a game has proven it's worth, $200 is a scary amount of money to spend.

I wouldn't give $200 to Sigil or Turbine, or any of the companies putting out new games.

If you can believe this, the only games I would consider throwing $200 at for a lifetime membership would be EQ and Ultima Online. Why? Because they are older than dirt and are still going. Heck, EQ has over 500K subscribers now. It's not it's heyday, but not damned bad either considering it's 8 years old.

I would drop 200 bucks for a lifetime on a MMO if they could guarentee that the game would always be interesting and if it would always have good customer service...but they cant....so I will never buy a subcription for a lifetime. My two cents.

Of course, if you try a few games at $200 each and play just one of them as long as EQ, then you're ahead in the long run (and have some other games to dick around with when you're bored).

But when I *&%$ around I just play a alt in EQ. http://www.ayonae.ro/images/smilies/tongue.gif
I have a few hundred dollars in games on my shelf collecting dust...bleh