Hellgate: London - Pay to play

[Steven W]

Flagship Studios have revealed a subscription based service for the online aspect of Hellgate: London.

Check out the Headline

[Dooms]

I dont mind as long as the game is good (and i really hope it is!)

[dave87]

That probably counts me out - for the moment at least the Uni Connection is too variable in ping to enable multiplayer gaming

(therefore I'm not going to pay for something I can't use )

[Ferral]

I will be getting it for the single player regardless, bit of luck my PC will be upgraded by its release in the summer. As for paying for multiplayer, bit of a no no I feel. What next ? Valve introducing fees to play Counter Strike and Blizzard start charging to play Diablo 2 online ? Same difference really as it is not being labled as a MMOG of any sort.

Online only games I can understand as they have to keep servers running etc. Mind you NCSoft managed to release Guild Wars with no fees so more should follow their lead in the future hopefully.

[noTHINGface]

I agree with others, it had better have a decent single player component then, I hate subscription based games, always have and always will.

[kalniel]

Well I was only going to play it single player (+lan) so not really bothered

[GeorgeTuk]

Excellent thats another game I don't have to buy. I will not pay to play online. After all we have been playing online for 'free' for a long time, its included in the game price.

I'm thinking here at Hexus we create a new game sector, MMOPTPG (Massivley Multiplayer Online Pay to Play Games), certainly seperate the wheat from the chaff.

Oh and another thing, in the early days they always talked in grandiose ways of how you would get new areas added to the MMORPG online games as time went on. They never said it would be in the form of expansion packs which cost more money. Look at WoW, £30~ for the main game, monthly subscription £5~ and then expansions at £20~. Take Counter Strike: Source as £30 for Half-Life2 and...well thats it. I realise its a different concept but WoW is way too expensive and while I would love a little go there is no point as the first months you would be "pwned roflz!!!"!1!!"

Ahhh thats better, rant over!

[Dooms]

This argument comes up alot and end of the day it boils down to people either will or wont pay... game developers dont really care.

I don't agree with your CS:S and WoW comparison tho... I mean £30 for HL2 w/ CS:S - Fair enough but what have they added? A couple of maps over the years?

In the 2 years WoW has been out they have added SOOOO much without charging for an expansion, lots more quests, instances / dungeons, bug fixes (ok, they should be free / not in to start with), in-game quick support, talent changes etc etc. The expansion is because they are basic adding 100% extra content.

Some people see that worth the monthly sub, others do not... each to their own.


Free MMO... Guild Wars. Great game and they update it alot to solve issues but the way they get round not having any monthly subs is web based support and no extra content added for free (they are on 3rd 'expansion' already)

[kalniel]

Actually DDO is a good model - they are always adding expansion like content, but it's included in the subscription costs.

[directhex]

Excellent thats another game I don't have to buy. I will not pay to play online. After all we have been playing online for 'free' for a long time, its included in the game price.

who runs the servers that multiplayer games are played on?

and you are aware that there are diminising returns ohn scalability, right (i.e. you can't support 2x as many players with 2x as much kit)

[Dooms]

Directhex brings up a good point there... CS:S servers are paid for by the people who play on them, a huge amount of players do infact pay a monthly subcription to rent the servers you play on

[GeorgeTuk]

Very true on all point and I hadn't thought of any of that. Thanks for correcting me on those points.

However my annual salary is still the same and I don't want to pay all that extra money for a game.