Beta Test Emails Now Released

[Pyree]

For a game that occupies hours of my time every day and is receiving continuous content updates, I feel that $15 for a month is reasonable unless the game is putting things in a cash shop as well (which a lot of them do these days). I can't see SE doing that, though. They have really only dabbled in that in the past on FFXI, it never felt like it was a big part of their business plan. And I hate having to buy seasonal event items from cash shops when I'm already paying a subscription fee (ie. Tera/Aion before f2p). I miss the days of decently interesting in-game events for all of these items like in FFXI.

Edit: Removed GW2 from the list of games selling seasonal items since that game is buy-to-play so it's a little different... But I still don't like it for different reasons. lol

[arus2001]

Well, there's a part of me that wishes MMOs would strive to be more competitive on pricing. Right now, it's more a case of extremes with the $15/mo vs. B2P/F2P. There's also some lingering bitterness toward XI where what we were getting via updates over the past 18 months or so wasn't worth the price. For example, if I could get in on two games for $7.99/mo apiece, I'd be more inclined to try both instead of just focusing on one at $15. Sure, you could average that against F2P titles, but then you introduce that murky area of potential cash shop requirements. Long term, I hope F2P does wind up the norm for online gaming, as the usual defenses for it tend to be a farce.

[Pyree]

Yeah, that's a fair point. I haven't been following FFXI for a few years now, but I can definitely relate when it comes to other games I've been playing. Aion and Tera both were subscription based but the updates took far too long, and I'd agree that they probably weren't worth the monthly charge. If content patches are coming out about every two months, I'd feel that's reasonable. That was about the schedule of FFXI back when I did play it, and was the schedule for FFXIV 1.0, so I'm hoping it will continue that way for quite a while with ARR.

[Churchill]

Every month or it's not worth the fee. Game Masters are active, and hazards to the economy dealt with swiftly. Bugs are fixed the day of or after with hotfixes.

There is no excuse to pay for a video game and not be supported for your patronage. I wouldn't sit through a movie where every 10 minutes a scene was missing, I wouldn't accept a meal at a restaurant where my steak and potatoes had no potatoes. The industry will never get better as long as people go against this kind of thinking, people such as the 300,000(ish?) who are still playing/paying for XI.

[Izzy]

Apparently people using Comcast e-mail servers aren't getting beta invites as they're being filtered as spam lol.

[Seravi Edalborez]

*shrug* My email is Comcast and I got it fine.

[arus2001]

The industry will never get better as long as people go against this kind of thinking, people such as the 300,000(ish?) who are still playing/paying for XI.

What's also annoying is bringing up critique of such brings out the people who play the loyalty card and often follow it up with the comment of just go and play another game if whatever isn't for you. Maybe it's just me and not wanting to surround myself with uppity yes-men, but if I'm making something for people, I tend to welcome constructive criticism. And given the frequency of something like "too grindy" being a complaint, it's a mystery why new titles continue to embrace such.

Skinner box brainwashing, I guess.

[Kohan]

Every month or it's not worth the fee.

“The biggest problem is the fact that you’ve got a monthly model, but it’s so expensive to make content for the traditional MMO now that if you spend $250 million like EA did on Star Wars, you’ve only got 30 days’ worth of content,” he said. Old Republic’s big draw was an elaborate, multi-part storyline set in George Lucas’ galaxy far, far away. But once Old Republic players burned through all of that content, there was nothing to keep them involved. The cost and time required to develop more content for players to enjoy made it difficult to impossible to keep them supplied with entertainment for their $15 a month.

“So you’ve made 15 bucks from the consumers, basically, before they churn out of your game,” Kern said.

World of Warcraft, said Kern, didn’t have this problem because in 2004, game production costs (and players’ expectations) were so much lower that it was economically feasible to churn out content and keep players engaged every month, so they didn’t cancel their subscriptions.

With today’s high cost of game production, Kern said, “that model is dead.”

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/1...-of-mmo-games/

No, updates every month isn't feasible. Even WoW doesn't do it (the occasional hotfix aside), although it comes close. No one else could hope to afford anything near that regularity.

[Lucavi]

Apparently people using Comcast e-mail servers aren't getting beta invites as they're being filtered as spam lol.

I'm comcast, but I'm not legacy, so I don't intend to get one at this early juncture. I've gotten every other alpha/beta email from SE just fine, but it would be hilarious if that were the cause.

Sim City V comes out at a pretty good time, all things considered. I'll have that to obsess over until I get in on the second round of beta.

[Izzy]

Wow does it every 3-4 months, and I'm fine with it.

[Kelenae]

Bugs are fixed the day of or after with hotfixes.

If only bug fixes were this easy in RL.

[Rocl]

I'm comcast, but I'm not legacy, so I don't intend to get one at this early juncture. I've gotten every other alpha/beta email from SE just fine, but it would be hilarious if that were the cause.

Sim City V comes out at a pretty good time, all things considered. I'll have that to obsess over until I get in on the second round of beta.

Banished to phase4

[solracht]

If only bug fixes were this easy in RL.

Blizzard has next-day hotfixes pretty often. Maybe companies should try a little harder?

I'm not saying a hotfix should be ready hours after the patch goes live, but letting issues go for a week or two after acknowledging them (like they did in XI/XIV) should not be acceptable nowadays. Either way, SE needs to learn to do actual hotfixes. Taking the servers down for 2-3 hours and calling it a hotfix made me roll my eyes every time.

[jwang]

Part of the reason that SWTOR was so expensive to develop content for can probably be laid at the feet of licensing fees. Since SE owns the FF title outright, costs for development shouldn't be as much as an issue, so getting content at the same rate as WoW should be expected.

[Kohan]

Part of the reason that SWTOR was so expensive to develop content for can probably be laid at the feet of licensing fees. Since SE owns the FF title outright, costs for development shouldn't be as much as an issue, so getting content at the same rate as WoW should be expected.

No.

[sackings]

SWTOR was super expensive because EA blew like 100m on advertising / marketing alone instead of leaving the game in the cooker till they had some substantial endgame content to speak of.

[Churchill]

Anet updates every month, it's not always new dungeons, new content, but bug fixes and the previous do come out every month. If Anet who is absolutely terrible and works without a subscription fee can do it, then it's acceptable to expect the same service from a game you are paying for.

If you'd like to take offense for calling people who play XI dumb (especially for the WoTG and post Heroes timeframes) in the face of such a sustained lack of attention to the game and complete abandon ship they did with the number of developers, that's your call.

RE: Hotfixes
Anet and WoW do same day hotfixes, WoW even rolls the servers back if the issue was economy/game breaking. If you're paying somebody for a service, then you should expect that service or the game should be free to play.

[Churchill]

SWTOR was super expensive because EA blew like 100m on advertising / marketing alone instead of leaving the game in the cooker till they had some substantial endgame content to speak of.

I thought they also blew a lot of money on voice acting, or is that a different game?

[sackings]

yeah that too... I knew from when they first started talking about the game it was gonna be fail because of the amount of emphasis on full VA and shit that belongs in a single player game, not an MMO

[Swag]

I have 0 faith that SE could pump out any kind of decent content month for month. At best I would expect something every 3-6 months out of them.

I mean content too, not the pointless "jump through these hoops to get a swimsuit" event stuff they like to throw out to keep people busy.

Beta forums are going to be excellent once the testing starts lol