Do you feel $15/mo is a resonable cost for an MMORPG?

you never know, STO may work out for you. more often than not, the leveling up process can be fun, or most likely will be tedious. if you stick through it, many month to month games provide much content at the 'end game'. or at least it seems.

 

I believe its worth it if the MMOs good enough, i play eve online .

 

Yeah if it's just WoW in Star Trek clothing (or ship construction) then forget it. If it actually has that Star Trek feel and atmosphere, then I'll be hooked. I bought that Star Trek DAC (for like $5 or something stupid) and it is a HORRIBLE game, doesn't even resemble Star Trek other than the name and ship graphics, kind of.

 

I really think that it depends on whether or not you can afford paying the 15 dollars a month. For a jobless college student like me who can only spare a few hours a week playing this game it really isn't worth it. On the other hand if you have a stable job and a lot of time on your hands then of course you can afford the measly 15 dollars/month. Paying every month to something you don't really need seems to equal a devotion to that game, rather than playing that game for leisure (like Warcraft 3).

 

Well, that's how I'm feeling. I have a few hours every evening after the kids go to bed to get some stuff done, including gaming. But I'm unemployed, so money is a little tight, although I've got a few spare bucks set aside for "fun money". If I play the game quite a bit, I won't mind spending. But if I get tied to it out of obligation.

I guess that's what I am getting at altogether. It's really hard to find out if you'll like an MMORPG in the month time they give you especially if you can only devote a few hours a week to it. That's my issue. Why should I spend the same as someone that plays 50 hrs a week.

 

you could find something to suffice until battlefield BC 2

 

I've never considered a pay-to-play MMO but I might check out Final Fantasy XIV, if it's a quality time sink.

 

Well it's already nice they give you 1 month free(I've heard some MMOs give up to 3) to decide whether or not you want to bother to pay-to-play. I mean, when considering other services such as cable, you rarely get a free month(at least we have to haggle to get one at our cable provider) and you spend the same regardless of how much you watch too.

 

I second the people who say Guild Wars is underrated. It has a consistent online community (with guilds which are basically clans, alliances of guilds and two factions which are constantly battling each other).

And there's one thing that makes GW much, much better than WoW for me: you don't need to grind. Let me state again: you do not need to grind. Once you get to the level cap of 20, you are decently powerful and able to compete in PvP with a decent chance to win. Grinding and winning more experience will allow you to make your character more flexible, but not necessarily more powerful. Skill matters the most: which opponents you can and cannot beat, recognizing which types of attacks they are using and how to counter them (or how to manage to retreat alive!). Guild Wars's PvP is very good.

The fact that you don't need to grind also allows you to stop playing and then resuming at a later date without having fallen behind everyone. In fact I recently resumed playing after stopping for around 6 months. All my stuff was there, and I was quickly able to join a guild and start having some fun.

The amount of PvE content is massive, although I have no idea whether it's more or less than WoW. I haven't finished it despite having played PvE for well over 100 hours (probably around 300 total by now).

The full game (3 major campaigns + the one expansion) cost me around 70€. That would allow you to play what, 2-3 months of WoW?

No thanks.

EDIT -- by the way, I voted 5$/month as a reasonable cost, as I would pay that for Guild Wars.

 

Guild Wars is a great game! Me and my bf have owned and played through all 4 campaigns(counting EotN as a campaign) and it is indeed very fun without the hassle of grind that most MMOs have.

However, I'll be the first to admit that if you don't want to PvP, Guild Wars' content might seem lackluster compared to other [paid] MMOs. Once you've done the storylines(which is long, but not horribly so), there isn't all that much else except PvP or grind material(ex: prestige armor which gives you 0 advantage on a practical level btw). Quests are IMO not very enticing unless you're a lore person as they offer little reward that is worth it for most of them. Unlike paid MMOs which added content, Guild Wars only gets campaign additions as permanent addon content(which are expansions). In the entire history of Guild Wars(since I've owned the game since it's first year of release), there have only been a few PvE addons(notably Sorrow's Furnace and the Domain of Anguish). Now compare that to a paid MMO which gets monthly content added(new dungeons etc.) and you'll notice that while Guild Wars is still a great game, it's not on the same level. For lack of a better term, I'd call Guild Wars a more casual version of an MMO(not to say it's for casual people, but even casual players have their place in the game and have fun without too much of a loss).

For the record the initial cost of the Guild Wars campaigns cost 50$ each so I've spent almost 200$ for the whole collection so that'd be equivalent to a year if not more of WoW.

 

There are a few problems with Guild Wars:
1. you can't PK
2. there are no cool items
3. you can't declare war on another guild.... come on why is it called GUILD WARS then?

Other than that it's an awesome game if you haven't played any mmos before

 

I'd rather say:

1) You can only PK in PvP. In PvE you set out on a quest, so no PK. Perhaps some districts (= realms, sort of) could be allowed to have PK in PvE.
2) There are some very cool items, and very expensive btw, but they give no practical advantage other than the respect of your fellow warriors. They look very, very cool but are as effective as any other top-stat item.
3) I agree with you. There is plenty of opportunity for guild vs. guild fighting but you cannot really declare another guild your "enemy". It would be nice to have.

 

1. That's relative. PK is a source of frustration for some players especially when you're not expecting it nor do you want to. The basis of no-PKs and the instanced system was put in place for the very purpose of not being a traditional MMO(as well as the cost savings of an instanced system).

2. That's once again relative. "Cool" is different for every person. Appearance-wise it's quite different from person to person. I've heard people who praise GW for actually keeping the weapons semi-realistic with only a fraction of them being "wild" and "over the top" like Japanese FF weapons.

If you mean "cool" stats wise, then it's because of the aforementioned point that GW isn't supposed to give an advantage to grind players vs "regular" players. Therefore, you don't get a practical advantage to spending 50 hours looking for an item; you might get a unique skin though.

I would agree though that item diversity in terms of appearance is a bit lacking.

3. You can do GvG which is essentially as much of a war as it gets. The system in Guild Wars isn't made to handle 200 man instances like the Lineage 2 servers(which is paid btw). The closest one gets to that are alliances and factions where you can ally with other guilds and go against other guilds in the opposing faction in certain events(AB, special maps etc.).

Personally, considering what it is, Guild Wars is a great game, but it's not an MMO like the others are.

 

I've been playing MMOs going on 14 years now (started in NWN on AOL that was originally pay per HOUR and people were racking up $600 monthly bills) so I've learned a few things...

One of them is that instances are bad for any MMORPG's community. You form much tighter bonds with people when forming groups for protection from other players(PKs) than when you form them for farming loot. Instances (both PVP and PVE) separate all the important parts of the game into individual mini-games of Diablo or TF, and MMORPGs can be so much more than that. If you can get past the grief part of PK you might get to see that it can add a much needed player-driven political element to MMORPGs that'll turn them from an online game to an online world.

 

haha.. so funny but way too true :/