Comments on: Is it a good idea to delay burnout?

By: Tesh

Tesh — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:08:01 +0000

Well, as for a flat fee giving more value (one time fee, that is), it’s not just a sheer numbers thing. With the GW/lifetime (ouch $$$) model, players can just do their own thing without worrying about the clock ticking. That peace of mind has to count for something, whether someone is RPing in the inn or raiding like a madman. Also, at that point, it really doesn’t matter how they are playing, since progression is completely in the hands of the player, rather than trying to consume all the dev-created content before the sub runs out. That’s what I’m getting at.

I’m totally sympathetic to the notion of slowing things down; I’m a heavy Explorer, myself, and I love just meandering in the world. Even so, I can’t help but feel a bit rushed when I know I’m paying for the time I play, and the game *by design* needs me to level grind or quest in order to see new content.

By: spinks

spinks — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:56:35 +0000

Good point about the endgame never being ready at the start of a game.

By: spinks

spinks — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:55:19 +0000

It’s funny you say that because I wasn’t thinking about WAR in particular. (I know lots of people have burned out on it or got bored, but lots of people are getting bored/burned out on other things all the time!) I did enjoy the RvR – for me it was just that something else came along that ate up my gaming time.

Having said that, if you’ve found a game you love and that you want to play a lot and that you aren’t burned out on, good on you!

By: spinks

spinks — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:37:47 +0000

I think we’re talking about something slightly different here. You can certainly argue that a flat fee gives better value to those who play longer hours. Which in terms of hours of play, it does.

But would that still be true if player A was in a raid guild that raided 3 nights a week, and player B was still level 4 and spent the same amount of time in game, but was mostly roleplaying in the local tavern? Because I think the latter is what I’m talking about here.

I am definitely intrigued to see what a more mobile-phone type of range of subscriptions would bring to the genre (ie. pick the sub which suits your play and don’t pay for features you don’t need), but I think there are big downsides to charging for a MMO by the hour. If only because it actively discourages a lot of social play due to it being ‘a waste of time’.

One of the big appeals of the Guild Wars charging system is not just that it’s a one off charge, but that it’s also cheap. Compare with LOTROs lifetime subscription which is pretty much the same model.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:57:00 +0000

Put another way, everyone plays the game of “life” differently, but we’re all guaranteed 24 hours a day for our “payment” of being alive. If I were guaranteed 80 hours for $15 in WoW, for example, how I spent that time, slow rolling it or not, is entirely up to me, and I have no place to complain how someone else spends their time. The trouble with monetizing per month (and to a degree, for time *at all*) is that real life interferes. It’s no longer a “level playing field” with paid access, it’s an imbalanced field heavily weighted to those with more time to spend per sub unit.

That’s why I like the GW model of paying for content; you can spend one month doing nothing but power leveling, and another playing on hour a week puttering around with a friend, and the total cost doesn’t change; you’ve already paid for the content, how you play through it is entirely up to you.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:52:18 +0000

Well, sure, if everyone is playing ten hours a day. My point is that not everyone plays the same amount of hours per sub unit. If everyone were paying just for the hours they played, and then they chose to spend those hours differently, that would be fine.

By: spinks

spinks — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:35:19 +0000

I don’t think I agree here. You pay your money for access to the game world. If you then choose to spend your 10 hours a day wandering around looking at flowers, well that was your choice.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:22:11 +0000

The trouble with playing at your own pace in a sub model is that you’re paying the same flat fee as someone who burns through the game by playing 10 hours a day. The value calculations are as divergent as the player schedules.

I’m all for playing at your own pace, but it’s galling to pay $15/month for puttering around on a very casual schedule. It’s just not worth it, even if I enjoy the actual game play.

By: Grimnir

Grimnir — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:38:49 +0000

I don’t see this burnout you’re talking about. I just think you’re doing it wrong. Just like every other person in WAR that complains about the “end-game content”. This is an ONGOING WAR. It’s not going to end, it hasn’t stopped in the past 30 years, why would it for an MMO?

Here’s how it breaks down for me. RvR, RvR, PvP ganking, RvR, Scenario, RvR, Instance, rinse-wash-repeat. There’s things about the game that can drag you down (like some issues I had with a T2 warband last night), but the fun is what you make of it. If you try and run instances all they time, you’ll be spending a long while bitching about the /lockout timer on a dungeon that takes less than an hour to roll.

I’m not a slow-gamer by any means, I’ve been playing since launch, and I’m working on my third T4 character now. Think about each character you get to T4 as another miniature delicately hand-painted and battle tested on the open field. Build an army of them to call upon, your own personal arsenal of doom.

By: Tarsus

Tarsus — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:51:08 +0000

To quote from a wise man who I played with back in the days of Everquest: “The problem with a massive multiplayer game… is that you have to play it with other people.”

It’s just like the real world in that way. If you have trouble setting boundaries and managing your time, you’ll burn out the same way people burn out on their careers or social lives.