Do you have a source for this? As far as I know this has never been confirmed anywhere. Maybe it's just a free download once they receive your subscription payment. Until I see a confirmed source for this I'm going to be skeptical of that.kenu12345 said:You do realize you will also be paying that initial 60 on top of the subscription cost rightNocturnus said:I don't understand the resistance to a subscription model.
Guild Wars 2 supports itself by putting all that shiny stuff for you to buy on the store, and it's not cheap either. A new armor skin is 10 dollars, and a new weapon can be about as much too. To even change your character's appearance costs 5 bucks, and don't get me started on how they managed to monetize the ever living crud out of dyes.
I, personally, don't like that. When I pay a subscription, I know that when I log in, I get all those weapons, all that armor, all the functionality and inventory space, everything for one cost up front. I don't have to play the "Let's roll the dice for the dye I want" at 2 dollars a pop. That dye will drop from a mob, in game, or be accessible to me through a tradeskill.
Subscriptions also give the company more peace of mind in the long run. They're more stable, easier to predict the bottom line of.
15$ a month is NOTHING, also. The cost of going to a movie for two hours of entertainment costs about as much. If the game is good, and has a wealth of content, you're going to spend dozens of hours a month on the thing should you have the time, and hundreds of hours a year, all for a little north of 100$ per year. Hell, a new game at launch costs about as much.
Again, looking for a good reason to rally so hardcore against something like this. If someone tells me that "They just don't get the time worth the subscription", I will ask if they have seen a film in the theater at all during that timeframe... because you just spent more for less overall entertainment.
I don't buy this idea that all ES gamers will refuse outright to buy it just because it has a slightly different (and not necessarily more expensive) method of paying for it. Hell I'm an elder scrolls gamer and I'm ok with paying a subscription for it if the game is good enough. TES:O is NOT Skyrim. Skyrim doesn't need to keep dozens of servers online perpetually or have a ton of the components that make it an MMO, so it makes sense to pay a one time fee. With TES:O it's a persistent world that costs money to maintain and upgrade and expand. This is just a reality of the game. The gameplay itself and the world is reminiscent enough of TES that I think if the game quality is as good as it appears to be, that TES fans will want to experience it regardless of whether it's a subscription.Lunncal said:Whether subscriptions are good or bad is pretty irrelevant. ESO had a chance to attract its own fanbase, the people that liked The Elder Scrolls in the first place, and with this move it has pretty much instantly blown it. Every TES fan is used to paying £40 (at most) and getting hundreds upon hundreds of hours of gameplay, which they can play whenever they want, for as long as they want, and which even has an endless supply of both free unofficial and paid official content to go alongside it.Sight Unseen said:I don't really get why everyone is so gung-ho against the very idea of subscriptions. Sure, the price for this partiicular subscription might be a bit steep, that's a legitimate concern, but to complain about the entire financial model is weird to me. Subscription services are a legitimate alternative and offer plenty of benefits that other MMO monetization methods do not. As long as companies don't "Mix and match" payment methods and throw in Buy to Play and microtransactions, subscriptions are nice because they guarantee that you can access all of the content available in the game without worrying about being nickel and dimed or subjected to pay walls to access content. It also avoids having the ever floating temptation in "f2p" games of being able to just drop money to win the game for you or buy super rare items for a few dollars. It provides some level of balance because all players are on the same footing.
A common argument is that some people dont have time to play it as much as they'd like and feel like that subscription is wasted on them. If you predict that you won't be able to play much for a certain period in extreme circumstances you could just temporarily drop the subscription until you have more time. And even if you regularly only have a few hours a week to play, $15 a month still isn't THAT expensive. That's less than the price to see two movies (minus any snacks or food), which combined would only amount to at most 5 hours of entertainment, yet I'm sure many people still go to see movies at that price. Even if you only get to play it for 10 hours a month (~2.5 hours a week) I still think that $15 is a reasonable value for your time. I pay more than $15 a week just to buy lunches at work and they don't provide me with a months worth of unlimited enjoyment whenever I feel like it (or have time to)
Is it because a lot of us (especially PC gamers and myself included) have become spoiled with how cheap games are with steam and humble bundles and all of these other platforms of great sales, that we don't appreciate how much value we get for our money anymore? I just don't really get it. Sure, the game is more expensive in the long run (read: more than four months of play) than a new AAA release game unless they give discounts for pre-purchasing longer subscriptions. But this game (if it's good... if it's bad then it'll fail subscription or not) will likely provide tons more content and enjoyment opportunities than most AAA games will over those 4 months.
If you don't like subscription games, then that's fine I guess, nobody is forcing you to play it. I just don't understand why its such a turn-off to so many people and why so many people are already declaring this game dead in the water before it even launches purely because the game is subscription based. If the game is really good, people will pay to play it and it will succeed. If it's not good enough then people won't and they'll either have to adjust their business model or take the game down. I don't think the subscription itself is a death sentence though...
I'd like to hear other peoples' opinions on this matter.
I think @Maxtro had the best idea. By abandoning the monthly subscription and replacing it with paid "DLC" you could get pretty much the same profits for the same amount of work without alienating the TES audience. Now it seems like they want to compete with World of Warcraft instead, and that only ever ends one way.
And that's the key point for me I think. If the game is good, people will play it. This subscription cost may alienate some people but it's not so exorbitant that it will keep people who actually like the game and the world from playing it. I guess we'll find out.
The only subscription game I've ever paid for was Runescape and I enjoyed the hell out of it, so I don't see why it's such a death sentence to have a subscription model.
This argument makes no sense. If you have time to spend $15 at a movie theater once a month then you have time to spend $15 a month on a game that you can get unlimited enjoyment out of whenever you want. And if you're really so busy you can just cancel it and come back later.endtherapture said:The thing is a movie is 2 hours, you can just go out when you've got the time and see that movie. With Guild Wars 2 depending on how much spare time I've got I can just decide to boot up and play when I'm feeling like it. I can leave the game untouched through busy periods of work and exams. I can decide to not play for a while because I'm having more fun with another game, maybe a new one that comes out.
With a subscription model I have to plan my periods of gaming in advance. I can't just decide to boot up and play because there's an extra financial obligation involved - I have to spend £9, and for a student, £9 for the chance to play a game is a lot of money especially for such a non-social activity, compared to going out for a meal or seeing a movie.
You have to base your life around this game you're continually paying for rather than the other way around, which just puts me off paying for such a hassle.