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As hinted at last year by a few people in the FOG, the price of gaming is going UP! But not just console games, their price increases are in a way justified because with new technology comes greater depth of immersion therefore you are getting more for your money.
It's the online gaming communities that are starting to feel the pinch. With the tumble of internet advertising revenue over the last 12 months, most sites with great ideas that were relying on banner clicks as a form of incoming have now had to make some hard decisions.
Planetarion, which last round had 180,000 players, has now had to bite the bullet and announce at VERY short notice that next round will pay P2P (pay to play). They are charging $10 US per round per person, with discounts for buying multiple accounts.
In my view that's a disaster for not just the company (5th Season) but for the gameplay, because the advantages of playing with more than one account are huge as long as you don't get caught, which rules out fair play.
Add to this the fact that the game itself has always had problems staying online at anyone time, and it's bye bye Planetarion for many regular players including myself, despite the low price.
They are not the only ones.
Legend of Mir, which many here have had the delight of playing for free during the Beta test period, are now being asked to pay to play. It works out at £1.00 per week if you sign up for a 12 month period.
The two big things in Mir's favour are firstly they planned it to be this way from the start, so somewhere along the line some analysts did the number crunching and must have found a way to make it work. Secondly they've got a great game there, and I for one will be signing up for it.
At present then we have two ways to play PC games online, either buy the software 'off the shelf' as a standalone product and play online like Half Life, Unreal Tournament etc with no extra charge, or more recently get the software downloaded for free and then pay a 'service charge' for the use of the servers thereafter.
More and more companies are now looking at this second option, and at present can set their own charges for online service it seems.
But how long before other companies like Blizzard (Diablo II, Baldur's Gate, Starcraft), Sierra Online (Half Life) and Activision (Quake III) decide that this business model is a viable option for them too?
It's the online gaming communities that are starting to feel the pinch. With the tumble of internet advertising revenue over the last 12 months, most sites with great ideas that were relying on banner clicks as a form of incoming have now had to make some hard decisions.
Planetarion, which last round had 180,000 players, has now had to bite the bullet and announce at VERY short notice that next round will pay P2P (pay to play). They are charging $10 US per round per person, with discounts for buying multiple accounts.
In my view that's a disaster for not just the company (5th Season) but for the gameplay, because the advantages of playing with more than one account are huge as long as you don't get caught, which rules out fair play.
Add to this the fact that the game itself has always had problems staying online at anyone time, and it's bye bye Planetarion for many regular players including myself, despite the low price.
They are not the only ones.
Legend of Mir, which many here have had the delight of playing for free during the Beta test period, are now being asked to pay to play. It works out at £1.00 per week if you sign up for a 12 month period.
The two big things in Mir's favour are firstly they planned it to be this way from the start, so somewhere along the line some analysts did the number crunching and must have found a way to make it work. Secondly they've got a great game there, and I for one will be signing up for it.
At present then we have two ways to play PC games online, either buy the software 'off the shelf' as a standalone product and play online like Half Life, Unreal Tournament etc with no extra charge, or more recently get the software downloaded for free and then pay a 'service charge' for the use of the servers thereafter.
More and more companies are now looking at this second option, and at present can set their own charges for online service it seems.
But how long before other companies like Blizzard (Diablo II, Baldur's Gate, Starcraft), Sierra Online (Half Life) and Activision (Quake III) decide that this business model is a viable option for them too?
If, on the other hand I can get BT surftime or something similar at home, or find a way to scam the Uni servers to let me access Mir, then I'll carry on playing.
I'll still play a bit.
Of course, I won't be going any higher than level 7, but when I have to pay 1.5p a min for the phonecall in term time (term starts in 2 weeks), then I'm not paying an extra £1 a weel.
Of course, I won't be going any higher than level 7, but when I have to pay 1.5p a min for the phonecall in term time (term starts in 2 weeks), then I'm not paying an extra £1 a weel.
Hmmmm.
I won't be playing Mir anymore, it seems. I neither have the money or time to continue.
A pound a week does seem a good deal, however.
I won't be playing Mir anymore, it seems. I neither have the money or time to continue.
A pound a week does seem a good deal, however.
I have just received my Legend of Mir CD client from Shopla, Italy. This game better be good.
^_^
^_^
I've now paid up for a full year of Mir gameplay.
I'm hoping some other gamers from the Forums are going to sign up too, because although I have a few new friends in Mir willing to sign up to a Guild when it's created, we still don't have enough gaming prowess between us to take over Sabuk Wall when the time comes.
I'm hoping some other gamers from the Forums are going to sign up too, because although I have a few new friends in Mir willing to sign up to a Guild when it's created, we still don't have enough gaming prowess between us to take over Sabuk Wall when the time comes.
FantasyMeister wrote:
> commences on the 20th, in 9 days time.
That's my birthday!
> commences on the 20th, in 9 days time.
That's my birthday!
From http://www.legendofmir.net:
"We are delighted to announce that we have successfully completed our Beta testing period for Legend of Mir...We are now ready to start our Legend of Mir subscription service. To find out more about our introductory offer please go to our Commercial FAQ pages."
Basically just click the 'payment' link on the homepage to see the details. You can play for free for a limited time until your character reaches lvl 7, then you can do no more until you start paying to play.
Existing characters from Beta ARE carried over into the commercial service, so my lvl 21 Warrior should be OK :-).
Commercial service commences on the 20th, in 9 days time.
"We are delighted to announce that we have successfully completed our Beta testing period for Legend of Mir...We are now ready to start our Legend of Mir subscription service. To find out more about our introductory offer please go to our Commercial FAQ pages."
Basically just click the 'payment' link on the homepage to see the details. You can play for free for a limited time until your character reaches lvl 7, then you can do no more until you start paying to play.
Existing characters from Beta ARE carried over into the commercial service, so my lvl 21 Warrior should be OK :-).
Commercial service commences on the 20th, in 9 days time.
The thing about online games, the thing that I don't enjoy, they change over time. Now many of you would see this as a good thing, an ever evolving game, but as someone with hugely varying amounts of spare time I'd have to leave it for too long that when I came back it would be unrecogniseable!
Planetarion was great when I had plenty of time, there I was building up a fleet of ships, researching everything, but I had no time to get online over about 3 days or so, and when I got back to it, everything I had spent so much time building up had gone.
So to spend money to allow this to happen is certainly not even a consideration, and many others will feel the same. But hey, online gaming has never really been the haven of a 'casual' gamer, has it?
Back to FM's point, if the games like FM mentioned, the RPG's and FPS games evolve to become fully online games, as in online only, then it woud make much more sense to follow the P2P business model. After all, those that really enjoy it will fork out again and again to play, and you'd rake in extra cash from those that wanted to give it ago for a month, or season, or whatever. Also they're not forking out for packaging, or distribution, or whatever.
Planetarion was great when I had plenty of time, there I was building up a fleet of ships, researching everything, but I had no time to get online over about 3 days or so, and when I got back to it, everything I had spent so much time building up had gone.
So to spend money to allow this to happen is certainly not even a consideration, and many others will feel the same. But hey, online gaming has never really been the haven of a 'casual' gamer, has it?
Back to FM's point, if the games like FM mentioned, the RPG's and FPS games evolve to become fully online games, as in online only, then it woud make much more sense to follow the P2P business model. After all, those that really enjoy it will fork out again and again to play, and you'd rake in extra cash from those that wanted to give it ago for a month, or season, or whatever. Also they're not forking out for packaging, or distribution, or whatever.
I didn't know that we would have to start paying for Mir, do you know when that may start?
ONe groups of games you have missed out FM, are the ones that you buy off the shelf, and then still pay a set amount per month.
Games like EverQuest, Asheron's Call, Ultima Online etc all use this system at the moment. But this can be argued for as the game world is being developed all the time, money is constantly being spend on updating the game, ironing out any bugs etc, so people obviously feel that it is a fair amount to pay, otherwise they wouldn't play.
Moving on to games like Q3A, UT, HL etc, they work differently. Normally after launch the only way the game is updated is by fans of the game making maps, mods, updates etc for people to play.
The game developers don't normally release any updates, so why should we pay to play it online? Because of the cost of the servers, some may say.
But it's worked alright so far, online games have been going on for ages, I suppose the first big server hungry online game was the original Quake, but I could be wrong.
For all that time we haven't had to pay for play online, so why should we start now?
IF, and it's a big if, we do have to start paying for online games of Q3A, UT etc, I feel we may see a rise in the number of consoles bought, simply becuase people may want to carry on playing multiplayer, but the only way they can do it is to get some mates round and play Q3 on the PS2 or the XBox or whatever.
ONe groups of games you have missed out FM, are the ones that you buy off the shelf, and then still pay a set amount per month.
Games like EverQuest, Asheron's Call, Ultima Online etc all use this system at the moment. But this can be argued for as the game world is being developed all the time, money is constantly being spend on updating the game, ironing out any bugs etc, so people obviously feel that it is a fair amount to pay, otherwise they wouldn't play.
Moving on to games like Q3A, UT, HL etc, they work differently. Normally after launch the only way the game is updated is by fans of the game making maps, mods, updates etc for people to play.
The game developers don't normally release any updates, so why should we pay to play it online? Because of the cost of the servers, some may say.
But it's worked alright so far, online games have been going on for ages, I suppose the first big server hungry online game was the original Quake, but I could be wrong.
For all that time we haven't had to pay for play online, so why should we start now?
IF, and it's a big if, we do have to start paying for online games of Q3A, UT etc, I feel we may see a rise in the number of consoles bought, simply becuase people may want to carry on playing multiplayer, but the only way they can do it is to get some mates round and play Q3 on the PS2 or the XBox or whatever.
As hinted at last year by a few people in the FOG, the price of gaming is going UP! But not just console games, their price increases are in a way justified because with new technology comes greater depth of immersion therefore you are getting more for your money.
It's the online gaming communities that are starting to feel the pinch. With the tumble of internet advertising revenue over the last 12 months, most sites with great ideas that were relying on banner clicks as a form of incoming have now had to make some hard decisions.
Planetarion, which last round had 180,000 players, has now had to bite the bullet and announce at VERY short notice that next round will pay P2P (pay to play). They are charging $10 US per round per person, with discounts for buying multiple accounts.
In my view that's a disaster for not just the company (5th Season) but for the gameplay, because the advantages of playing with more than one account are huge as long as you don't get caught, which rules out fair play.
Add to this the fact that the game itself has always had problems staying online at anyone time, and it's bye bye Planetarion for many regular players including myself, despite the low price.
They are not the only ones.
Legend of Mir, which many here have had the delight of playing for free during the Beta test period, are now being asked to pay to play. It works out at £1.00 per week if you sign up for a 12 month period.
The two big things in Mir's favour are firstly they planned it to be this way from the start, so somewhere along the line some analysts did the number crunching and must have found a way to make it work. Secondly they've got a great game there, and I for one will be signing up for it.
At present then we have two ways to play PC games online, either buy the software 'off the shelf' as a standalone product and play online like Half Life, Unreal Tournament etc with no extra charge, or more recently get the software downloaded for free and then pay a 'service charge' for the use of the servers thereafter.
More and more companies are now looking at this second option, and at present can set their own charges for online service it seems.
But how long before other companies like Blizzard (Diablo II, Baldur's Gate, Starcraft), Sierra Online (Half Life) and Activision (Quake III) decide that this business model is a viable option for them too?
It's the online gaming communities that are starting to feel the pinch. With the tumble of internet advertising revenue over the last 12 months, most sites with great ideas that were relying on banner clicks as a form of incoming have now had to make some hard decisions.
Planetarion, which last round had 180,000 players, has now had to bite the bullet and announce at VERY short notice that next round will pay P2P (pay to play). They are charging $10 US per round per person, with discounts for buying multiple accounts.
In my view that's a disaster for not just the company (5th Season) but for the gameplay, because the advantages of playing with more than one account are huge as long as you don't get caught, which rules out fair play.
Add to this the fact that the game itself has always had problems staying online at anyone time, and it's bye bye Planetarion for many regular players including myself, despite the low price.
They are not the only ones.
Legend of Mir, which many here have had the delight of playing for free during the Beta test period, are now being asked to pay to play. It works out at £1.00 per week if you sign up for a 12 month period.
The two big things in Mir's favour are firstly they planned it to be this way from the start, so somewhere along the line some analysts did the number crunching and must have found a way to make it work. Secondly they've got a great game there, and I for one will be signing up for it.
At present then we have two ways to play PC games online, either buy the software 'off the shelf' as a standalone product and play online like Half Life, Unreal Tournament etc with no extra charge, or more recently get the software downloaded for free and then pay a 'service charge' for the use of the servers thereafter.
More and more companies are now looking at this second option, and at present can set their own charges for online service it seems.
But how long before other companies like Blizzard (Diablo II, Baldur's Gate, Starcraft), Sierra Online (Half Life) and Activision (Quake III) decide that this business model is a viable option for them too?