Monthly Fee

[fleshcutter]

monthly fee!! if there is one i will never get the game i will think it is rubbish and just ferget that it ever existed.it would be ok for a yearly fee though just as long as it isnt too much so as i said once before about sony and their ps3 not playing ps2 games in the UK, it would be uncool for these game geniuses to have a monthly fee, uncool!!!

[MazerK]

Well, seeing as this is an MMO, I think it's pretty obvious that there will be a monthly fee. Since it won't be like counter-strike where you pay the money and the players run their own servers.

The money we pay each month will be their 24/7 staff's paychecks to take care of any server/customer problems, make fixes, create new content, running events in the game, anything I might be missing, etc for the several coming years that this game will be up for.

[fleshcutter]

ok for everyone who wants (if you do want it ya gotta be crazy) or thinks there should be a monthly fee. is wrong. they'll make tons of money just by selling the game, i think if they need to make more moneythrough this game they should sell the games currency for real money what does everyone think? am i right?

[Ghos7]

Originally Posted by fleshcutter

ok for everyone who wants (if you do want it ya gotta be crazy) or thinks there should be a monthly fee. is wrong. they'll make tons of money just by selling the game, i think if they need to make more moneythrough this game they should sell the games currency for real money what does everyone think? am i right?

These days, they don't sell MMOs in boxes. They usually let you dl it for free on the internet, give you a free trial, and then give you a monthly fee. Usually, I just pay for a year, save up for a mmo fund the rest of my subscription, then pay again, for how many years this game will be out.

[LizardPariah]

Originally Posted by MazerK

Well, seeing as this is an MMO, I think it's pretty obvious that there will be a monthly fee. Since it won't be like counter-strike where you pay the money and the players run their own servers.

The money we pay each month will be their 24/7 staff's paychecks to take care of any server/customer problems, make fixes, create new content, running events in the game, anything I might be missing, etc for the several coming years that this game will be up for.

That doesnt mean crap. There are millions of MMOs that go on without monthly fees (ok mabey not that much, but there's a lot such as Rappelz, silkroad online, rakion, tantra, Shadowbane, etc)

In fact, GPotato supports 5 MMOs absolutely free (the game themselves are free to dl.) So I dont think Huxley REQUIRES a fee just because it's a mmo. I think it's likely that they will.

However, with all the ads, etc. It can be supported without a fee.

[MazerK]

Ok, for a second let's pretend that this IS going to be a free MMO. What happens if the game becomes as popular as they hope? They can't run multiple top-of-the-line servers that can handle the load of several thousand people(without crashing or lagging insanely) without either adding an obscenely large amount of ads to the game, or supporting the mass of players by making them pay a small fee to run the monthly costs of the game.

You have to remember, some of these 'free' MMOs aren't very hack-proof and, for the most part, don't rely on high-powered servers and a constant highspeed internet provider running them. Huxley will also be an mmo FPS, meaning a large constant stream of data moving back and forth between you, the server you're connected to, and several hundred(or thousand) people all doing the same simultaneously is not something that can be paid for with google adverts alone.

So, unless you want to see a screen chock-full of annoying adverts on every side of every building, which any respectable company would like to do without, what do you suppose could pay for all of the hard work of the employees and equipment they'll have? Or does everyone expect them to be a non-profit company and rely on donations as incentive to bring better customer support and the on-going evolution of the game to the table?

A small fee every month isn't asking much for what it's worth.

[zeekgenateer]

However what would you define as a "small fee". I see a regular fee as being from 5-10 dollars with a small fee being less than five dollars. I just hope they have a small fee and use some ads so the fee is less. If they make us pay 15 a month, I possibly won't ever touch Huxley.

[impulsive]

no then rich kids will beable to buy all the great items an stuff

[Grind]

people will probably end up selling the currency on their own, so there could be a price competition between players selling currency and actually buying currency from the game makers.

Not sure how they could make a bunch of money without having a monthly fee (I hope they don't but oh well). Maybe have a bunch of expansions lol, that would be kind of annoying though

[fleshcutter]

Originally Posted by impulsive

no then rich kids will beable to buy all the great items an stuff

i suppose your right rich kids would yeah theyd really annoy me

[Grim_Reaper]

Usually MMO's are out for the PC only. But in these case, it will be coming out for the 360, so I think there will be a disc and then a separate monthly fee for PC users. ($8.00 a month for 360)

[science]

Lets just say Guild wars, this is maybe not as popular as WoW but i supports thousands and millions of gamers.... and at what expense only through the CD and competitions do they make money. Yet they have enough funding to produce two sequels and one soon to come out making it three. Plus signs of Guild wars 2 so they obviously aren't having trouble setting up a MMO which is free.

[187 Phantom]

Originally Posted by science

Lets just say Guild wars, this is maybe not as popular as WoW but i supports thousands and millions of gamers.... and at what expense only through the CD and competitions do they make money. Yet they have enough funding to produce two sequels and one soon to come out making it three. Plus signs of Guild wars 2 so they obviously aren't having trouble setting up a MMO which is free.

agreed. it is a complete myth that companies need to charge a fee to run an MMO. the only reason it is done is because of the huge revenue.

take WoW for an obvious example.
2 million subscribers (just in america, 8.5m worldwide) at $15 a month = $30 million a month = $360 million annually.

that's a BIG incentive to charge a monthly fee.
and as a public company (vivendi), it's your duty to your investors to do so.

and now the new thing is to add in-game ads. so you have the revenue there too.

[Zaratoustra]

Originally Posted by 187 Phantom

it is a complete myth that companies need to charge a fee to run an MMO. the only reason it is done is because of the huge revenue.

Hello,

I think phantom might delete my post again saying this is not constructive (do you really think your is ?!!) but well i have to say it... That's the meaning of a forum.

As Mazerk said telling people that the need of a fee for a mmo is a myth shows your ignorance of the subject. Anyone that played a real mmo (i'm not talking about guild war or world of warcraft which are the worst exemples you could take) KNOW that when a mmo comes for retail only half the job is done. There still a lot of work to do which can only be done by updates (and if you want real updates to be done you have to pay developpers to do them). But that's not the only point a fee. When you pay a fee you actually don't only pay for updates you pay for the servers that can hold thousands of players without lag aswell (believe me or not but this is VERY expensive).

Best regards.

Zaratoustra

[Sutures]

Not just the initial cost of servers, but you also have to look at the cost of continuing operations. Upload bandwidth has a tendency to be very expensive, power requirements for the servers is expensive (Just look at how google decides on where to put their server farms, it's got a lot to do with the price of electricity). Then you have to remember a full staff of programmers, graphic artists, GM's, Quest developers, class balance rep's etc. etc. etc.

Also look at the quality of the "free" MMO's. They have a tendency to be very, very lacking.

And then on top of all of the overhead there must be profit, or why publish the game to start with.

[Zaratoustra]

Originally Posted by Sutures

And then on top of all of the overhead there must be profit, or why publish the game to start with.

I totally agree with you... Why would companies bother of making games if they weren't making profit?

[adR123]

i doubt Huxley will be $20 a month... because all the overseas players ie. Australian player ie. me, would have to pay double that $40.. well, maybe not now because our currency is stronger.

But still!

[Jesus]

So, what people are saying is that the game will be downloaded? Are you sure, because games like that get hacked quite well and i'm pretty sure they don't want to. Also, the game has already produced what the covers for the discs will look like, so won't it be bought out on a disc to save effort. As it would be bought on disk, says for you guys it's $80, but for me it's £40. That's quite a bit of money for let's say for a million people that's about $60,000,000. That's quite a bit of money in the bag right there.

Then if you introduce a monthly fee, that's going to put a whole lot of people off the game with just a glance at it saying "monthly fee", and many people will not be able to continue paying that much money. This game will quite quickly most likely get boring, as there is not too much to do. Their reputation as a gaming company will go straight down the bag, with only a small amount of people than a bunch load.

Ads work in games nowadays. You even get Tony Hawks Project 8 have ads by nokia in it (billboards with phones, cameras, your phone is a nokia phone) and that can pay big if we have lots and lots of people, than a small bunch paying a fee. Hay, thats an idea. People wanting ads in game are only goin to ask to put them in if lots of people play, so Huxley people should not add a monthly fee, because it is easier to take a tag load of cash from companies, than bring out an annoying monthly or yearly system which they have to get more guys on an end of the phone talking to gamers about their problems. Like this link says they have hooked up with Massive http://uk.gamespot.com/xbox360/actio...ml?sid=6153220.

Also, the lag etc is Microsofts problem, we pay on xbox a monthly on thing so we get a good internet connection. All webzen have to do is put one that is ok with everyone. When the problem comes to people running it on pc. I don't know, but i think i remember someone talking about people using pc and people using xbox can't play against eachother, because people on pc, kick everyones asses. Well that's what I gotta say on the matter, What do you think?

[MazerK]

The ignorance... it burns. This delusional and poorly thought out idea that in-game ads are enough to create 100% of the revenue required to run the game just isn't something anyone is shaking. Calling the need for a fee "a myth" doesn't help justify this idea, either.

Guild Wars is a bad example to compare this to because it relies on Instanced gameplay, whereas Huxley(for the most part) won't be. Non-Instanced MMOs require much more(and more expensive) server power than your average enslaved family of hamsters.

A monthly fee doesn't just get the developers 'uber rich', it also helps the community too. It makes the playerbase a bit more dedicated and sets a maturity standard(WoW is, hopefully, an exception to this...). I hope the game will have people with a bit more sophistication than the average counter-strike server, if nothing else than for the Game Masters' sake. Without some kind of fee I never see that happening all too well.

[Grahalen]

yea im Australian so if its $20 im paying around $35 for it and in that case im not gonna go near the game ill buy an ANTI-HUXLEY shirt and then make heaps of them and sell them to the millions of aussies that are angry as hell because the fee is too expensive