brink001

@(Unverified) Every time I do well I get called a hacker. I'm thinking the problem might be from within rather than without

Kept coming back to play this at E3. Fantastic game, tons of fun, and can't wait to pick it up

Sorry brosephs, all subscription games have microtransactions. They're called gold farmers. YOU didn't even get to make the choice whether or not to play in game with microtransactions -- you thought you were playing in a closed ecosystem guarded by a great wall of subscriptions, only it turns out that while you're grinding away for the gold to buy that epic mount, 1 out of 10 dudes is out enjoying his life and just buying gold from the black market to make up the difference.

Other players made that decision for you. They are the market.

How does it make you feel that while they do that Blizzard, CCP, and Trion don't see a dime of that money? That there is a billion dollar industry and NONE of that money is being reinvested into the creation of more content, but rather sweatshops and Mercedes for the gold farming operation owners?

At least in an F2P game you get to make the choice, and you know that your money goes to support the developers and publishers of games that you appreciate. Paying $15 a month in a f2p game is just fine too, and if you want to you can buy $50 worth of cool crap from the Cash Shop and STILL be out ahead than if you had just bought a box.

The historical resistance to f2p is well-founded; traditionally these games have been crappy import grindfests with bad graphics and even worse localizations, and a cash shop hell-bent on extracting every ounce of your soul directly through your wallet.

To think that just because something has historically been one way means it will perpetually continue that way is silly, to say the least. Things are changing for the better, and I for one am glad that I'll be able to start playing games where the barrier to entry is so low that I can EASILY bring my friends over (without convincing them to make a huge up-front purchase), and where I know that every microtransaction is reinvested into the development of the game.

This article perfectly captured the thoughts I had on Rift that I had not properly been able to articulate so far. Great work

@jealouspirate If I had 50 million dollars to make a game with you'd get a check so fast it'd make your head spin!

@(Unverified) Don't forget that a live service game's costs don't stop when the "finished" game launchers. Running the game alone is an expensive proposition -- office rent, bandwidth, continued development staff, continued QA staff, customer service, a percentage of each transaction that goes to payment providers and a little off the top in the form of refunds, chargebacks, and fraud.

These costs could easily eclipse a million a month, but for continued simplicity's sake, the default "cost" of the game for those three years jumps from 50 million to 86 million (50 million plus 12 million a year for 3 years).

Yikes

@Ryn You can fix the whole multiple MMO subs thing!

I have to say, I started playing this game after Massively's last article about it and I've been ridiculously hooked. Hooked as in "sleep three hours a night, don't go anywhere on the weekends, play during lunch break" hooked.

It's a marvelous feeling, one I haven't experienced in ages, and the whole 30 day free trial thing just makes it all the better.

AlienFanatic, Fallen Earth is a (mostly) PvE sandbox MMO. You can avoid not only PvP combat, but combat altogether if you like. There are quests that get you started on crafting, and then you can use the gains to purchase other materials (either from players, the AH, or NPC merchants).

Contextual PvP with consequences.

PvPing with some sort of context and consequences is ALWAYS better than the kind where all you're trying to do is score some kind of reward. Games that exemplify the former are Ultima Online, Shadowbane, Darkfall Online, and Mortal Online. Games that exemplify the latter are EQ, Wow, and others.

Strangely enough, one of the better games at doing this is a little known Korean game called Knight Online. The PvE content is a deplorable grindfest, but in PvP, the top clan on the server can actually OWN a castle. The owners of the castle set a tax rate on all merchant transactions AND control access to a high level dungeon. All PvP can feed into this system, and the castle is the ultimate reward. It's interesting context with consequences that makes for killer PvP

My room faces the apartment where NoMutantsAllowed is based, and the glowing awesome from the sign will force them to finally acknowledge that there's a good Fallout game besides the original