SOE: "When you can't beat them, change your business model."

Well, if you can accomplish all of that and have an enjoyable game, I will be right their with you. :) I am just not bright enough to see how they can all work in concert with one another.

True, that. I am very interested in seeing how folks square this circle, because neither option is all that interesting to me, personally, so I’d love to see some alternatives. I just worry that the sort of in-depth world development and systems development we’re used to from EQ/EQII, WoW, LOTRO, DAOC, etc. will go by the wayside in favor of something, well, shallower.

Ditto on that. I am all about some fun gameplay with a different slant. Puzzle Pirates, for example, has a lot of interesting ideas, but for all the good it has, the depth of the game, on the whole, leaves me wanting and I was good after a couple months of it.

Even though some say WoW is MMORPG for dummies, there is a lotta shit going on there that many would miss if it were not.

That’s very true. Those of us who have been playing MMOs of one flavor or another since before UO (back to the Neverwinter Nights on AOL days, if not before with MUDs or whatnot) sometimes look at WoW that way (probably without much justification, really) but for many if not most of the umpteen million subscribers it has, it’s pretty damn engrossing and involved.

I would play the first large-scale MMORPG that really solves this dilemna, as ATITD nearly did (but it wasn’t rich enough and the end game required something like point B above).

Yep. Back in the day.

SOE should just give up and come back in, say, five years when people are tired of WoW and ready to move on to something new.

I don’t think the objection to Hellgate is the concept of their tiered payment model, but rather with what you actually get for that payment, and, more importantly, what you DON’T get if you decide not to pay. It’s also problematic for them to have something like Guild Wars out there as a direct comparison, which to my mind only makes Hellgate look worse.

Yeah by that time maybe SWG NGE will have implemented everything back from PRE CU and CU? It will be really great !

Can we all agree that “velvet rope” is the lamest name for this revenue model? It just sounds pretentious and gimmicky.

This sounds quite interesting. I took your tidbit and had a lunch discussion with some gamer friends yesterday. I agree with the above poster. If your game, or a game of the future does solve this balance problem, you will get my business, and probably (based on the conversation) many others as well. I guess the gotcha is solving the dilemma you posted above.

I’m pretty limited in terms of what I can say right now about specific features in the game, since we haven’t released much info yet.

From a personal perspective, though, I can say that we’re taking a hard look at what everyone assumes you “have” to do in an MMO or an RPG. I think CRPGs (and the MUD roots of MMOs) have been around long enough now that they have a distinct language and flow that inherently makes sense to folks who have been playing them for a while.

I don’t think that flow and language makes sense to people who DON’T play MMOs and CRPGs, whether it’s because there is something about them that they dislike or whether it’s because they haven’t been exposed to them before. Since game developers (especially designers) are immersed in the flow and language of games every day, it’s been really interesting to try to “free our minds” and develop FreeRealms. We’re looking at every convention and presumption inherent to a typical MMO and saying, “Why does it have to be that way? Is that the best thing for players?”

That sounds good to me Laralyn!!! I hope you guys are successful in coming up with new and/or unique ways of development and mechanics in the genre. Genres on the whole, be it RTS, TBS, FPS, etc., get into a rut so easily once one formula is successful. Before long, the rut becomes the sole way of doing things and companies put permanent blinders on. Core rules of development MUST be followed to make X type of game.

I wish developers in all genres would do this, but most of all I hope comsumers will reward developers for creating game mechanics that break the mold.

Go FreeRealms!! Sign me up for the Beta. :)