I see what you're saying - "money goes somewhere, so why not do what you enjoy" - but to me it's not really how much it costs, it's the idea behind it. I love Guild Wars, but I only had to pay for the game. If it had a sub I wouldn't have touched it.

I don't have a lot of "entertainment" expenditures. I like games, books, and movies (which I rent, but only after they're down to $1). The library can generally keep me stocked in books, and when it comes to games, I prefer to buy those that are complete unto themselves.

If it was $5 a month and not $15, I still wouldn't go for it. Obviously many people don't mind, but I will never "pay to play". That's all I was saying.

No, not any amount in any game. If I didn't want to play the game, I wouldn't pay for it at all. I also find that for the games already existing community... being able to buy levels dilutes it both in terms of maturity and skill set when it comes to group play.

you asked why it became a thing. i just gave you an explanation. whether you would do it or not is not really important here. i just gave you an explanation on why it is.a thing. nothing more nothing less.
playing wow is not getting a character from level 1 to 90. this is not a game for many people. it is a chore which has to be dealt before playing the proper game.

if i can put it on other terms which might explain the situation to people who don't play mmo.

Imagine that wow is Baldur's Gate Trilogy. aka bg1+tosc+bg2+tob.
Baldur's Gate 2 is the best game in this pack. people often come back to it to try something different, different class etc.
but to get there you have to beat bg1 and tosc. you can't just skip to bg2.
unless you pay sixty bucks which allows you to start bg2.
if you don't pay to enjoy the glory of bg2 you have to suffer the drawbacks of bg1 and tosc. sure. it was fun one time, years ago. but you don't have time for that stuff anymore. you want bg2 not redoing the same stuff in bg1.


oh. furthermore. levelling up and endgame content are completely two different things. if you are new player the time you spend on getting to level 90, the things you learn.... its completely useless. you will have to learn very different things in order to be able to play properly in endgame content. therefore your last comment is incorrect.

Apples and oranges. Gaming, or entertainment versus utilities. Completely apples and oranges.

A better example would be you pay $15 to go to a movie (another form of entertainment). Would you then pay $5 every hour half hour to keep watching it?

Because with WoW, you pay $xxxx for the game, then you pay $xxx each month to keep playing.

After all, with the movie theatre, you have loads and loads of infrastructure working after you paid the initial entry fee (like lights, air conditioning/heating, etc.).

You don't have to put it on different terms... I play MMO's and would never pay to advance my character artificially.

yes.
sequels. prequels. spinoffs. i paid 15 bucks to watch ironman. then paid another 15 bucks to watch even more ironman (2)
and then i paid another 15 bucks to watch avengers.


so yes. i would. and millions of people do the same every year. wow is much cheaper than going to cinema.

or tvseries.

you can buy each episode. four bucks per 25 minutes. then you have to pay another four backs to watch another 25minutes.

it caught on because it provides hundreds of hours of entertainment at a lowly cost of 360 bucks a year. cheaper than movie theatres, nonbargin bin movies and even rentals.

nm, sorry to have responded.

This thread is about WoW offering to level up characters for a fee, not about what form of entertainment it is and how it's paid for.

My bad for going totally off topic.

HELL NO. You're super bad with examples. Lern2math. Lern2logic, even - a much better comparison would be a movie DVD or something.

New movies come out every damn week. A movie theater supports its infrastructure with rotating movies.
You pay for one movie, you watch one movie. That's it. You can't even watch the same movie without paying the entrance fee a second time (theaters in Moscow even had people checking for stowaways - they probably still do), not to mention watch every damn movie this particular theater shows.

WoW wants you to play forever, and themselves to provide quality content that will keep you playing forever. This requires a steady stream of money.
YES, there's a point of bifurcation below which the influx of new people being born and getting into gaming by itself can keep you afloat (see: Infocom's money printer). Infocom lasted... dun dun dun... seven years. As in, less than WoW. And their games were WAY cheaper to make and support.

?
what topic? there is nothing much to discuss about the news if we can't go "offtopic" so don't be afraid and post your thoughts.

There are differences. MMORPGs are not played to win, they are played just because, to waste time and feel good. It's art. Everyone is free to define their own criteria of what constitutes achievement.

However, the "culture" which develops in a community can and will force you to reconsider your criteria, given that they are very flimsy and arbitrary to start with (it's all just pixels anyway). Feelings matter. Previously, I ranted about the Olympic medal standings redefining what it means to win at the Olympics. It happens that my event is scheduled for this Saturday, and yes, obviously, I'll be trying to win despite the shitty weather. However - a bunch of people won't participate, because they know the weather will be shitty and they won't be able to improve their personal bests. For them, victory is improving their personal bests, they couldn't care less about satisfying our arbitrary criteria or being better than someone else.

Now, a game which depends on people buying extras is going to be incentivizing people to buy extras. And I feel that in such a game, there will be significant pressure to prominently feature "having extras" in whatever criteria for success I set, and I personally won't be having fun. There is an objective difference between FTP and subs. I understand it may not matter for other people, but it exists.

I take offense at that fallacious argument and the accompanying implicit accusation. The fairness of the subscription model doesn't depend on the necessity of the product - if anything, you could argue that since people depend on connectivity to function normally, it should be free, and premium services (higher speed, moar features) provided at a price.

I am not really surprised. This move is the result of poor game design concerning leveling. Adding levels with each expansion to be forced to reach to continue to PVP or to craft, was just wrong. I knew it since the beginning.
Blizzard could have made these new levels optional, like Master Levels in Dark Age of Camelot, or add some classes or ethnics, some real RP valuable content like campaigns...
But no, they didn't, they just used the easy way to add content. That's why I was doubtful when they annouced what business model WoW would have in 2004.
Not surprised at all.

In other words: Free to play model directly influences design of a game. Yeah, it does. If a F2P game is well designed, it won't limit you in any way and what can be bought is either for convenience or cosmetic. Most F2P games are not well designed, but many get close. I'm not entirely sure what were you trying to say other than that, F2P models impede certain playstyles more than the others I guess? Depends on the model and depends on the limitations.

I didn't accuse you of anything, implicitly or explicitly. If you insist on taking offense, well, who am I to stop you :D

First of all, I don't give a damn about fairness. What I'm saying is that we must pay for internet and phone to properly live in a modern society. We do not have to pay monthly fees for MMORPGs - neither for survival (obviously), nor for playing high-profile MMORPGs as so many are free2play already. After so many F2P or pay once (Guild Wars) models proved successful, I find any other modern MMORPG demanding regular payments to be bad by design, definitely in my eyes.

Second, if you want to claim that comparing absolute needs for your career and financial state to playing videogames is not a fallacious comparison, you are quite frankly out of your mind. Comparison to subscription to services like Google music or the streaming thing (Twich?), that's a good comparison. But you just can't compare life needs to entertainment - if that comparison was to be accurate, a person in financial crisis would need to be considering whether to drop internet, phone, or his WoW subscription.

Blizzard has two reasons to do this:

1) People have been using dodgy third party "services" that generally advertise themselves in-game with broken English using hacked or "borrowed" accounts - guess what one of the unstated features of those services is? - to get their characters leveled up for a long time. This isn't just an immediate monetary issue; it has been an ongoing account security headache. Cutting the market out from under those guys by offering a legit alternative will probably bring in more money, yes, but the fact that it will address a significant game/account security problem is probably the main reason.

2) The leveling process itself is unavoidably something that the player endures to get to the "current content" - the latest expansion's stuff where everyone else is, leaving every prior expansion's areas and content as largely-empty wastelands. Unfortunately, they can't really do anything about this because it's mandated by the way the game was originally designed and the way that the game mechanics themselves work, neither of which can really be solved short of starting work on a WoW 2. The Cataclysm revamp helped a little, but it was essentially a case of putting a new coat of paint on a rickety old building.

That is more then AAA pc games on release day... and you still had to buy the game+subscription. "WOW" is the correct word here.

I wonder if an rpg can work without levels:

Just base stats: which you can work on to gain slight bonuses, like muscle building to increse strength, and other such ways to increase other stats.

And just base skill, which get more 'proficient' in (similar to the elder scrolls).. as you do them, and you slowly lose that proficiency when not using said skill.

And most injurys are fatal (if it takes place in medievil such times, before antibiotics), if organs are damage, or you lose enough blood, or get poisoned, or get exposed to extreme weather.
^are there any rpgs with this injury mechanic suggestion of mine? I want to be scared of getting into EVERY battle because there is a great chance of death, I think it would build suspense.

edit; single typo

Well, if you turn off all damage reductions towards player in Mount and Blade, you ... get knocked out fast. I don't think you can actually die in that game.