SHP Forums

Never heard of Habitat. Looks interesting. I never heard of the original Neverwinter Nights until a few years ago, which is odd because I was a huge fan of SSI Gold Box games and have or used to have pretty much every game until Dark Sun came out.

I probably would've been huge into Ultima Online back then. I followed it closely until they canceled the Mac version. It's probably good because now I still don't ever pay MMOs, so I get to save my money and time for other things. I don't think any game is worth paying to play each month, and there are plenty of other games to play without monthly fees.

The Old Republic might change my mind on that, though... if it gets excellent scores and is priced decently, I may break down and get it. Honestly, I haven't been impressed so far, though. It looks like it uses what's apparently called the "holy trinity" system of tank-dps-buff, and I think it's dumb that jedi are a normal class that anyone can be instead of something you have to work for, which means jedi will probably be weakened to compete with other classes.

The only two MMOs I'd consider paying a subscription for nowadays are DC Online[/i and Knights of the Republic. Having said that, I won't be getting either one.

I have trouble justifying $15 a month (in addition to the initial purchase price) to play a game. I realize WHY it costs per month, but it's still too much for me.

What if I don't play much or at all one month? How about two or three? Maia and were playing Team Fortress 2 everyday for months. We're now taking a break and probably haven't played it in... well, a long time; I'd need to check my Steam account for the actual date.

How about Guild Wars? Maia and I played that all the time when we were apart and had a long-distance relationship. It was a good way to interact together between visits. The game was fun and designed for casual gamers -- the level cap was 20 (which you could reach somewhat easily) and skills/spells were more important that leveling up anyway. Best of all, it's absolutely FREE to play without ANY restrictions.

GW earns most of its money from extras that aren't necessary at all. For instance, if you want to unlock all spells and skills (which you eventually unlock anyway by playing the game) right away, you can pay $5 to do so. Say you want a really cool looking costume or you want to change how your character looks or even their gender. All of the above costs a very small amount and isn't important as far as the game itself is concerned, but if players want to do it, it's available.

My point is that we haven't been burning $15 a month since we've stopped playing TF2 and GW. We might -- and probably will -- go back to the latter at some point, but right now we have too many good single player games. With Dragon Age 2 coming out soon (March 8th), I doubt we'll play anything else for quite a while.

Having to pay a fee each month forces you to play. Granted, you don't HAVE to play, but then you might as well set fire to $15 every month you don't play the game. This amounts to a feeling that you absolutely MUST play the game. Once you HAVE to play a game, it's no longer fun and turns into a chore.

Besides, I hate the level-up treadmill. The entire process boils down to: kill things to get money, spend money on better items, use better items to kill things to get more money, and so on. It's silly if you think about it.

Not that it would change your mind and nor am I trying (as I don't play any MMO's that have a monthly either - since all I play in terms of MMOs is Lord of the Rings Online and Champions Online - both free) - but most MMO's offer the monthly, which is 15, but if you do 3 or 6 months or even a year; you can typically get the monthly down to 9.99 a month.