Topic: Hellgate subscription info; Bill Roper on GFW Radio

[idolminds]

Subscription info!

The latest issue of Games for Windows Magazine has revealed the elite subscription pricing behind Hellgate: London, which will be free to play online should you opt out of subscribing for additional features. These features, which will be available for $9.95 (depending on location) are as follows:

    * Elite subscribers pay $9.95 a month
    * 24/7 phone- and internet-support
    * No (server) queues for elite subscribers, with preference over non-paying customers
    * 3 chars per account for non-elites, 12 for elite-customers
    * Elite subscribers can store up to 40 items (instead of 20 for non-subscribers), which can be accessed from any char in an account-wide item vault.
    * Visible distinction from other players. Elite subscribers are recognisable from their equipment and may trade subscriber-only equipment to other elite subscribers.
    * VIP-Shuttles to remote areas
    * Housing and founding of guilds are enabled for subscribers. Elite subscribers may attain officer/leader priviledges within their guild.
    * Elite subscribers have access to additional game modes, including Hardcore mode.
    * Elite subscribers and non-subscribers can play with each other.
    * Costs actually depend on where you live. Subscription fees in the Asian market will cost considerably less, in accordance to the market conditions and expectations of the players and local publishers within the region.

The subscription costs make it possible for Flagship Studios to produce additional content for Hellgate: London twice a month, or more. New content includes new items, monsters, areas, character classes and other content which are not present in the retail version of the game. It is not known as this time whether this additional content will only be available to paying subscribers.

Sounds like they struck a nice balance, actually. More "nice things to have", less "zomg exclusive important shit"! I'll be playing the free version for a while, and if those content updates are worth it it may be worth subscribing.

I havent heard it yet because it just released, but the newest GFW Radio podcast has Bill Roper on for the entire show...2 hours! Probably going to be worth a listen.

[Quemaqua]

I gotta' say, some of that pisses me off.  You get to hold more items if you pay?  What the fuck is with that shit?  You don't get hardcore mode without paying?  I really hate that sort of thing.  This pisses me off a bit.  I don't like it when they make you pay for artificial benefits that have no true cost value.  They could just as easily give it to everyone, but they don't.  Server queues I understand, limited inventory I do not.

Also, is there going to be any game modes where you can play with your friends and not on their servers, or are you tied to their servers forever whether you pay or not?

[idolminds]

I do agree that some of the things are trivial could just as easily be given to everyone...but at least they are things you can do without, for the most part. Its better than gimping the shit out of the free stuff, like limiting what classes you can play or whatever. Would it be nice to have more storage or more character slots? Of course, but I can play just as well without them. Hardcore mode, even though I probably wouldn't play it personally, is a rather stupid thing to hide behind a fee. I mean...come on now. Still...Blizzard did all this stuff free years ago. Why they didn't just mirror it I'll never know. Or shit, copy Guild Wars. Base game, free online, release yearly expansions.

[idolminds]

Ok, reading more stuff I'm going to have to say this sucks ass. There is a "soft cap" to your levels, around 35-40. At that point there wont be anything to kill that gets you XP, so you stop leveling. If you subscribe you get the new shit and you can keep going, getting higher levels and better equipment.

Well...WTF man, thats like buying half a game. I wish they just did expansions instead of subscriptions. What happens in a few years when they shut down the pay servers...no one can use any of that new content ever again?

Gah...now I want Blizzard to announce Diablo 3 without this pay-to-play shit.

[Pugnate]

OK you know like Idol I found this to be better than I expected. I was expecting a lot worse, and thought most of it -- even the limited inventory -- wasn't too bad.

However that soft cap is just retarded. WTF?

Costs actually depend on where you live. Subscription fees in the Asian market will cost considerably less, in accordance to the market conditions and expectations of the players and local publishers within the region.

This is the first time EVER in my life there has been an advantage to being a gamer in Asia.

Anyway all this pretty depressing and sucks ass. Screw them.

[Quemaqua]

Yeah, I'm pretty mad now.  If the game gets the best reviews ever then I may still consider picking it up, but as of right now I'm just too pissed to even care.  I can guarantee you that I have no interest in doing a monthly fee again.  With WoW that was fucking annoying and I don't need or want to revisit that in the least bit.

[Pugnate]

It sort of made sense with WoW, since it is an actual MMO... this just seems like being forced to play online something on the level of Diablo. When wasn't the $50 enough?

[idolminds]

I wish they just did expansions like Guild Wars for new content or something. At least then you can "keep" the new content that you paid for. If you stop paying, do they strip all that cool shit away?

[MysterD]

I wish they just did expansions like Guild Wars for new content or something. At least then you can "keep" the new content that you paid for.

Agreed.

If you stop paying, do they strip all that cool shit away?

I hope not.
That would suck.

[Quemaqua]

I'm sure they'll strip it.  Otherwise it *would* be an expansion pack and this wouldn't be a pseudo-MMO.

Eh.  I say let's go play some Diablo.

[idolminds]

I am agreeing with Diablo.

Bill Roper tries to justify stuff.

GameSpy: What if someone subscribes to Elite, but chooses to end their subscription? Does their gear undergo some Back To The Future effect where it just fades away?

    Bill Roper: [chuckles] Nothing will ever disappear. We don't want you to suddenly lose items. Your worst-case scenario in those events (and granted, we haven't figured out every nuance of what happens to items like that) is that you would lose access to things. For example, as a "value player," you have three character slots, while the Elite has twelve. So you'd keep your three top slots, and we might have a way to choose who your top three guys are. So if you stop or cancel for whatever reason, you have access to those three, but not the rest. Those other characters won't get deleted, you'll never lose them, you just can't use them.

Can't use them? Thats pretty much like losing them, asshole.

These 2 go together:

GameSpy: I heard you mention "quarterly," is that the content schedule? It's not monthly?

    Bill Roper: I don't know where monthly came from. I read that, but that wasn't us, maybe it's in a doc somewhere that I missed. But our push is always to do a big content update once a quarter (with smaller, incremental updates each month). Monthly would be really hard. The most difficult thing about a monthly push is QA. We talked with EA and they were all "no way we can do monthly, that's going to kill everybody." We talked about the best way of creating meaningful content, getting it through the testing process, and releasing. We also don't want to slam out buggy content and hear players talk about quests that don't even work.

    It seems like quarterly was the best solution. Players just think every three months "oh, cool, there's going to be a big content drop" and it's enough time for us to make something substantive rather than say "oh look, we added a new monster. Here he is." People are already brainstorming and making a big list of ideas. I think we'll have things that will blow people away. For example, to me, offering a new character class is a really big deal, I don't think I've seen that in any other game. It's not something you associate with a normal monthly fee. You're talking about implementing all-new skills and massive amounts of artwork, and that's a big deal.

GameSpy: Has the idea of doing a physical content disc, a packaging of Elite-content for those who don't subscribe, come up?

    Bill Roper: That's something we can definitely, potentially do down the line. It's not impossible a year down the line for us to be like "let's take the last nine months of content and kick that out to the single-player people." It's just a matter of figuring out "does that make sense, and is this what single-player people want?" Of course, we'll give fixes that affect everybody, like bug fixes or major balance tweaks, for free. The package is certainly possible.

    I think there's a case for saying down the line "we gotta let non-Elite people catch up to Elite," but even then, we wouldn't give them everything. But people need to remember that when you have that subscription, you're getting stuff first and continually, and you'll always have things that other people don't have. There will be time-based stuff, so someone who did wait for a theoretical "six months" disc jumps in and gets caught up, they'd miss out on special events. Like no special Christmas loot until the following Christmas. There will be times where we do things just once, and if you missed it, you can't get it. Like at BlizzCon, where every attendee got a murloc pet. If you didn't go, then you didn't get that pet.

Why pay monthly for content when it only gets pushed every 3 months? Seems rather dumb, doesn't it? Why didn't they release small "expansions" every 3 months that players can just outright buy? Sell it online for $30, let people own the content. Then every 6 months or a year you can package up the last 6mo/1year of content on a DVD and release it to stores.

Flagship makes the same amount of money for the content ($30 every 3 months), but the players get the benefits of owning the game..namely they don't have to worry about what happens when they stop subscribing and having all their shit taken away.

[Xero]

Sadly, they are probably right

[MysterD]

LMAO @ that comic.

[Quemaqua]

Yeah, that's really funny.  And sort of... making me sad.

[idolminds]

HellgateGuru forums and FAQ are pretty funny. Seems Flagship is doing some major damage control. Like, no soft level cap. Level cap is 50, and if/when it goes higher, everyone can go higher. The new armor and weapons? Strictly cosmetic, they won't be "better" than the regular items, just different looking/more impressive looking.

So by the time the game ships it'll probably end up being the way everyone wants it...haha.

[Quemaqua]

I sincerely hope so.  And honestly, kudos to them for realizing what their customers want and not being so completely bullheaded that they refuse to change anything.  If they're at least cool with listening to people, I won't hold these initial mistakes against them, especially because I really *want* to like them and play their game.

So... keep complaining, everybody.  Maybe this will work out after all.

[Pugnate]

I am sad. I was going to buy it anyway.

[Pugnate]

I don't know if this has been mentioned in this thread yet, but no LAN play:

http://www.hellgateguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3756&

That really fucking sucks for me. I have three computers going on a network, and my sister is powered by a x1950. We enjoy playing games on LAN and this fucking sucks.

Can't use them? Thats pretty much like losing them, asshole.

hahaha

So... keep complaining, everybody.  Maybe this will work out after all.

Man I just checked out the message boards and that place is rampant with fanboys. Where the f@$@% do they come from? Doesn't anyone see the danger of this? The more you are willing to let go, the more publishers are willing to shove up your rectum.

But yea, anyone who comes in there with a legit complaint has his head bitten off by fanboys.

[MysterD]

NO LAN, eh? Bummer.

Looks like I'm be doing a lot of SP, if that's the case...

SP better NOT require a fuckin' Internet connection, either...

[Ghandi]

Although this doesn't really have to do with this, I was thinking today how MMO games should have a way to pay per-hour. For WoW for example, I don't really have time anymore to justify the 15 bucks but if I could pay 2 bucks for, say, 10 hours, I would do it.

[scottws]

I'm sorry, but I'll never pay-to-play.  Ever.  I'm thinking about buying your game for $50 - $60 and if that isn't enough for you, then fuck you and your game.

I don't care about increased development costs.  I'm not about this subscription shit, or the crazy nickel-and-diming horse armor crap that is starting to go on.  Maybe it is time for game prices to come up, and I'm not against tasteful in-game advertising (but very against the type of spyware crap that BF2142 comes with not to mention it's ginormous and very out-of-place billboards).

[Jedi]

I don't think I'll ever understand a persons objections to paying to play an online game - granted BF was online and free but I see the difference between that game and say WoW as being the servers we're using. Bliz hosts the game world/s on their servers (so long as the performance is stable etc) I don't mind paying for that.
I would never pay to play a game (like BF) that's hosted on some random server with a weak connection.

In my mind it's that simple, but then that's just me.

[Quemaqua]

I'm with Jedi.  And I can't believe anybody would *ever* put up with in-game advertising.  So you won't pay for an online game, yet you'll have ads forced down your throat?  You and I have very different priorities, scott.  And, of course, I don't want to pay for online stuff if I'm not getting anything for it or if there isn't significant cost to the developers for upkeep or whatever, but if you've got a game that requires that, how do you expect them to give it to you for free?  It just isn't possible.  My only beef is the abuse of this system, which to me Hellgate seems like it's sort of veering into.

[MysterD]

I understand why companies want to do "in-game ads" and "pay-to-play" subscriptions -- for money, of course.

Both models suck, if you ask me. They both are abusing gamers, in so many ways.

Look at how "in-game ads "-- and spyware -- are w/ BF 2142. Worst of all, I'm sure the game runs worse, performance-wise, b/c of these ads be generated on the fly and its spyware.

About "pay-to-play", I understand that these MMO companies have to pay for all their servers for you millions of players to play over and all. But, that fee -- $15 per month -- to keep playing for software I bought right out the box is crazy; that shit adds up. If anything, charge me a larger flat-fee for the MMO software straight out the box, to help pay for the costly upkeep of using the company's servers. That and/or they can go the Guild Wars route and pump out expansions every few months, forcing me to go out and pay for the new content.

That's all I got to say on this.

[scottws]

I'm with Jedi.  And I can't believe anybody would *ever* put up with in-game advertising.  So you won't pay for an online game, yet you'll have ads forced down your throat?  You and I have very different priorities, scott. 

Seeing a Pepsi can on a desk or seeing the names of real companies on the outfield wall and scoreboard of a baseball stadium doesn't really force it down my throat and in fact makes the experience closer to realism than seeing a bunch of made up crap.

As far as everyones' arguments for MMOG-type games requiring a pay-for-play system, I haven't really thought of it because I have no interest whatsoever in those types of games so I don't factor those games in my rationale.

My rage isn't really against WoW, it's against Hellgate.  There is no reason that this stuff has to be for-pay.  It's just nickel-and-diming.  In fact, discussion about this game has completely turned me off to the game itself.

[Quemaqua]

That's fair.  I'm not really an MMO guy myself, so it doesn't tend to affect me much, and you're right, seeing that sort of model try to find its way into stuff where that's totally unnecessary, like Hellgate, really sucks and makes me unhappy.  I still dislike the ad thing, though, because the small stuff is just leading into bigger stuff.  I think it just needs to get shut down entirely.  We've given them the inch, and now we're seeing them try to take the mile.

[MysterD]

I don't think I'll ever understand a persons objections to paying to play an online game - granted BF was online and free but I see the difference between that game and say WoW as being the servers we're using. Bliz hosts the game world/s on their servers (so long as the performance is stable etc) I don't mind paying for that.

I still don't want to pay $15 a month to play one damn game. That shit adds up. So, basically, I pay $50 for the software -- then, that's another $180 for the year. Bah. I could've bought a bunch of other games, for that $180 cost.

Say I start playing a bunch of MMO's at once -- likely, I'll be paying a monthly fee to play every one of those, as well. That shit REALLY adds up, even more so.

I'd play more online MMO's, if they had some the kind of business model like say Guild Wars has. What they were doing was making each expansion a stand-alone, so they'd charge full price on you for the expansions. Those games are of full-game length anyways for expansions, so that's fair -- as that full price will take care of some of their server fees.

(Though, the next GW expansion will not be standalone; it'll require one of the GW games owned and it'll be at a reduced cost like that of an expansion pack, BTW...)

I would never pay to play a game (like BF) that's hosted on some random server with a weak connection.

Agreed 100%.

[Quemaqua]

You don't play more than one MMO at once, MyD.  That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard you say.  Do you have any idea the time investment required for these things?

[idolminds]

I used to say I'd never pay a monthly fee for a game...then I went and played WoW for...what, 2 years? Totally worth it. What ends up happening is you save money because you buy fewer new games and just pay those $15 to keep playing the MMO. I wouldn't trade my time in WoW for anything, even if I don't end up going back now.

D, just go get the $2 trial DVD and play the game for 2 weeks. You need to get a frame of reference on this stuff. Do it for science.

[angrykeebler]

Idol is right. During the time I played WoW i bought waaay less games than I did when WoW wasn't around. I also gave up consoles during my WoW days.

Since I gave up WoW I buy a bunch of games that I play for a little bit before getting bored. I also bought a 360.


Kinda still wish I was a WoW addict. Shit saved me money.

[Quemaqua]

I wasn't buying as many games at that point just because I was having more money issues.  But yeah, I think they're right.  It kept me on one thing for quite a while.  Lately I've been spending like mad on games... though to be fair, it's mostly used games, hence cheaper.

[W7RE]

When I was in college I was blowing my school loans on 2-3 or more brand new games every month. When I got into MMOs, I slowed WAY down on game purchases. I played DAoC for a year, and WoW for the past 3 years or so, and I've probably bought 3-4 new games in that time, and 3-4 used. I know I've become short on money, so I really can't buy games anymore, but I don't even check gaming news sites that much.

When I'm occupied with an MMO I just don't care about other games as much, unless it's something really cool looking. So yea, it can seriously save you money. (or maybe I was just playing the wrong games, and I'd rather play a perpetual game than one with an ending)

[Jedi]

...During the time I played WoW i bought waaay less games than I did when WoW wasn't around. I also gave up consoles during my WoW days.

Since I gave up WoW I buy a bunch of games that I play for a little bit before getting bored. I also bought a 360.
...

You speek the truth there man right down to buying a 360! 

I still don't want to pay $15 a month to play one damn game.

That's all you really have to say on the matter D, you don't want to, so don't. You don't see the need behind paying a company like Bliz per month to play, you just expect them to provide a service on the back of their [large] infrastructure for free.  Bliz doubled the number of servers etc hosting WoW in its first 4 months which they expetced to do over 12! Now that shit adds up! And I know their making money after the fact but their a company their expected to. 

And I agree with both Idol and Q, you really need to get some perspective on this.

Edit:
Oh and not to mention all the content that's been released (for WoW) in the last 2 years, there's been stacks of it! I would go as far as to say its equal to about 50% of that seen in the expansion pack. There's all the PVP stuff they released then reworked 18 months later. The many many many adjustments to each class to create balance and better gameplay. Oh and the all the patches they released fixing the game right down to tiny stuff that hardly anyone notices! That's what the subscription buys you tons and tons of support and new content on a regular basis. "That shit adds up".

You want all that over 2+ years for 50 bucks....