“There’s a rumour going around that the next wave of Call of Duty games will include options to buy into online subscription extras.”

Focus on the third word. That should help.

I agree I suppose. Consider Champions Online for instance, I paid $60 for the game itself, and now I am into my second month of paid subscription, for a combined $95 so far. I honestly feel it has given me maybe 10% of content and overall satisfaction that Dragon Age: Origins has, at nearly half the price.

So I am for subscriptions, additional DLC’s and continued content for titles, but only if it’s worth it.

The problem of course it that you still have to spend the initial wad of cash to determine if the game is worth your time. That may take some time, and in case of MMO’s that familiarity cycle is longer.

And the relatively few games do include FFXI, EQ, DaoC (you say groups were encouraged to move around, but my predominent memories are of spending hours in tree groups or at the pygmy goblins?) So — pretty much every succesful game of that era.

Still, the “camp in an area with a group and pull monsters until your eyes bleed” type of gameplay was limited to a relatively few games. I still don’t quite see how it fits into your point.

Personally, the games I felt most “at home” with were the ones where my friends were; that includes both friends from outside the game that joined me to play and friends made in the game. “Home is where the heart is,” as they say. Gameplay make get you interested, but after a while it’s all about the people even if the gameplay could be mind-blowing.

I don’t think graphical based MMOs at our current technology level can give me a virtual ‘home’ atm. As someone coming from MUDs anyway.

As a graphical game in the MMO genre (which some people argue it isn’t – MMO that is), I love Guild Wars, and I think it’s beautiful.

But GW is not, and will never be, a home. It’s funny, imo MUDs do living, breathing worlds better because text is an agnostic medium. ^_^ Just gotta find that new MUD that’s the right home for me!

So yes, there’s an audience out there for virtual worlds, but I suspect it’s a minority in the market.

Plus, traditional games have a tremendously short shelf-life and population. Most games simply wont maintain a strong enough following to make sub based DLC worth it for a player. Subs would really only be worth it for the big games, and even then I’d rather not go for it.

I remember coming to it from everquest online adventures and being surprised at how much harder FFXI was. EQOA was not an easy game either.