APB developer cryptic about subscription model

Yeah, it won't be that. Ancient MMO's did that (mainly text based MMO's) and it sucked complete balls for both the player and the developer.

Chances are, they'll be taking the Korean MMO approach.

I don't know why it would suck, at least for everyone except the most die-hard. You could even set up time ranges to prevent an hourly charge from climbing too high. Say something like

0-20 hours = $4.99
20-50 hours = $9.99
50+ hours = $14.99

For me, it's not worth the $10 up front for a game that I /might/ play for only a few hours in any given month.

It sucked because the prices you listed aren't even close to what they offered.

There's a difference between saying "This is acceptable for the consumer" and "We can still make money off of this."

Companies make most of their money from MMO's by people like you ~ those who don't play that much. They lose money, or break even on, those who play a lot. While you only hear about those who play a lot, they generally only make up 5% of a games population. They make up even less in WoW.

This is pretty much my problem with MMO's as well. It's not so much that I think that the subscription is unreasonable, but that I probably wouldn't be able to play it all that often. I can only play games so much, and I don't want to devote all the time I do have to just one.

So a subscription is a massive waste, I'd much rather see alternate payment methods brought in. I'd even prefer the Korean model, assuming they balance it right and it's not just a case of "pay more for better equipment".

yeah, i'm cool with DLC, but games that you have to pay for up front, and pay to actually play is just messed up.

"I can understand the cost to operate and maintain servers etc."

As a network administrator I can honestly say you have no idea what the fuck you are talking about. The cost to operate and maintain servers for massive networks like biomedical research centers, college campus's or the local EA Big where I live is little to nothing. The cost doesn’t reach past paying the salary of the 2-3 people watching over them and on call 24/7, the electricity to power the massive freezer style rooms the servers are stored in/the servers themselves and the occasional time when some fucktard pinches a piece of fiber and you have to replace it. Quite literally all the cost associated with servers is the setup.

A game with monthly fees should have constant in-game updates and free expansions. Otherwise it should have no monthly fee and charge for expansions. Hopefully one day gamers will wise up and draw the line somewhere.

@Both MystileArmor and Anticrawl

You don't pay for much related to servers. You pay for the constant and frequent updates, the free content that gets released, and the customer support.

Now, whether or not any of that is actually worth how much you pay is generally up to the person and game. Not all MMO's offer the kind of support that is worth $15 for me, but I still play them. Not all of them, but most.

Mainly, I'll play them if a game has an interesting combat system. Like AoC. While the support isn't up to par, the incredible melee combat is. If they put that combat in an action-rpg I'd simply play that instead. But no one has.

That's what I meant with "operating and maintaining servers" the admins, the time to do events, enforce policies and get rid of abusers/cheaters.

Don't be such an assumptive dick, Anticrawl.

PC-only at the moment, but if the PC version does well then they'll bring the game to consoles. But since it's an MMO-type game, it'd be best to just get the game on PC.

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/19833/All-Points-Bulletin-Coming-to-PC-and-Xbox-360/

I've got a PC magazine from October 2005 that mentions APB and that it's "coming soon". There you have it. Also, Crackdown was designed for the original Xbox but missed the boat and ended up on the 360.

?!

What just happened?

and that also should not of been here and my last comment was messed up prob cuz of my ipod

When did iPods come into this?