MMOs in general, and FF11 in particular - do subscriptions get on anyones nerves?

[Assassin_]

I would probably play lots of games like FF11, World of Warcraft, Star Wars Galaxies, if they didnt tie you into a contract that you have to pay like, a quarter of my income every month that you want to play, at least not when I dont even know how much Id play it, considering other games, social life, college/coursework, etc. It wood be so much better if the price of the game itself was just, twice as high or sumat, rather than having to subscribe.

[escobert]

FFXI is 12.95 a month, the most I've seen is $15 a month. It's really not that much. I use to bitch about it but come on it's $15.

[Germ Hamee]

I admit that it's kind of a bummer knowing I've paid twenty-five bucks on the game these past couple of months and I've only played the game once or twice in that time period. But, seriously, it's the most miniscule bill I have right now so I really can't complain.

[DMKA]

It bothers me to know that I'm paying for it when I don't feel like playing, because the monthly fee makes me feel like I HAVE to play every day or I'm just throwing money away.

[DJZen]

It's $15, I spend more money on gas per month than I do on MMOs, and I also play City of Heroes. If $15 is a quarter of your monthly income, I would suggest looking for a way to make more than $60 per month. I'm really not bothered by the monthly fees. It's not much of my paycheck and I can cancel at anytime if I don't feel like playing anymore. However, I pretty much always feel like playing. Also, the cost goes to helping maintain the game, which has to be a huge pain in the ass for them. Since I've signed on with the game, I've seen some pretty big revisions made purely to balance out the difficulty and keep the gameplay fair. You can no longer get MPK'd, and RMTs have been banned which has helped the in-game economy. Now that's a service worth paying for!

[Assassin_]

FFXI is 12.95 a month, the most I've seen is $15 a month. It's really not that much. I use to bitch about it but come on it's $15.
2 things

A) Im in Britain, we dont have $

B) Im a student, I get £10 a week.

[DJZen]

Wow, no kidding, that really IS a quarter of your monthly income then (according to XE). How many hours a week are you working?

[Yeargdribble]

It bothers me to know that I'm paying for it when I don't feel like playing, because the monthly fee makes me feel like I HAVE to play every day or I'm just throwing money away.

12.95/month
43.1 cents/day
1.8 cents/hour

This isn't too bad.

Now let's look at another game... saaaaay FFX. I'll assume you paid 50 bucks for it when it first came out. You probbaly go back to it and play a lot. You might even have several 100+ hour saves. So let's assume you've played 300 hours. So $50 bought you 300 hours of joy. That comes out to 17 cents per hour. That's 9.4x the cost of FFXI/hr

Let's go the even more extreme route and look at FPS like Doom 3. It was 65 bucks when it came out. You can probably beat it in 20 hours. You may have done some time trials and played through it several times. However, I doubt that you played it more than 65 hours but even so let's assume you played Doom 3 for 100 hours. That comes out to 65 cents per hour. That is 36x the cost of FFXI per hour.

These games run out of content and fairly quickly. You can have easily done everything there is to do in the time frames I used to do the math with. I've got a play time of nearly 200 days. That's 4800 hours and I've not even scratched the surface of the content in FFXI.

Now granted the math above is a little unfair because almost nobody plays FFXI every hour of every day. However, I would guess that an average of 3 hours of gameplay every day (You could say 2 every weekday and several more on weekends which is the case for most). This still comes out to a measly 14 cents per hour of game play. Hell... any hours you aren't playing this game you can play other games. You aren't exactly burning money. In a very realistic sense you are actually playing for 24 hours of every day.

When you list something on the AH or leave your character outside and logged on with a bazaar they are making money for you while you are away from the game so in that respect the game is still playing itself when you are away. You don't leave FFX on overnight and wake up with a lot of money on your file.






I've said all that to say this. The cost per month for FFXI is comparable and even lower than the cost of most other games especially if they are bought right when they come out. You might not be sure you'll play FFXI that much and you are afraid to make that commitment but look at it this way. If you do enjoy the game you will easily be playing it often enough to cover the numbers I mentioned above and therefore end up paying less than what you would spend per hour on offline games. If you don't enjoy the game it sucks and all but after playing for a good 3 to 4 months you'll know if you like it or not and you can cancel your account then. You will have gotten as much time as any offline game though in only playing 3-4 months I doubt you would get as much enjoyment but hey. 12.95/month isn't very outlandish.

[Miriel]

2 things

A) Im in Britain, we dont have $

B) Im a student, I get £10 a week.

A lot of things in life you pay through subscriptions. Cable bills, internet bills, phone bills, etc. It would be one thing if you paid the original fee for the game and that original game was the product you kept and played, but new things are constantly being added to the game. You're not just paying for the original game, you're paying for the upkeep of servers, for the added content and so on and so forth.

If you can't afford the monthly fee... well that isn't really Squeenix's fault. =/

[Assassin_]

Wow, no kidding, that really IS a quarter of your monthly income then (according to XE). How many hours a week are you working?
Employment, or studies? If you mean employment, Im not, because I have to much studying to do. The money I DO get, I get as benefits from a condition I have called Aspergers Syndrome.


Now granted the math above is a little unfair because almost nobody plays FFXI every hour of every day. However, I would guess that an average of 3 hours of gameplay every day (You could say 2 every weekday and several more on weekends which is the case for most).
No, for the same reason I dont work. If I played a single game that much, alongside my studies, that would take up most of my life, at least at the moment. When I was in high school mabey, or after I finish college, but not now. Well mabey several hours on the weekend along with homework and coursework wouldnt take up most of the weekend, but I woodnt have much time for it in the week.

And also, you havent taken into account that the game itself has a price, no different to those other games you mentioned.

[Gwelenguchenkus]

.

[Germ Hamee]

Employment, or studies? If you mean employment, Im not, because I have to much studying to do. The money I DO get, I get as benefits from a condition I have called Aspergers Syndrome.


No, for the same reason I dont work. If I played a single game that much, alongside my studies, that would take up most of my life, at least at the moment. When I was in high school mabey, or after I finish college, but not now. Well mabey several hours on the weekend along with homework and coursework wouldnt take up most of the weekend, but I woodnt have much time for it in the week.

And also, you havent taken into account that the game itself has a price, no different to those other games you mentioned.

It sounds to me like you don't have anywhere near the amount of free time required to get into this game. I'm sure that sucks, but if the game was full of free-loaders it wouldn't be half the creature it is now.

[Thoughtless]

I'm like a WoW addict and when I stopped playing it for 2 months (it costs $20AU a month) I bought Fable: The Lost Chapters, Civilization VI and Dungeon Seige II and finished them. Seeing I spent $300 on games while not playing for 2 months I think it's worth spending $40 ^^.

[Assassin_]

lol

[DMKA]

12.95/month
43.1 cents/day
1.8 cents/hour

This isn't too bad.

Now let's look at another game... saaaaay FFX. I'll assume you paid 50 bucks for it when it first came out. You probbaly go back to it and play a lot. You might even have several 100+ hour saves. So let's assume you've played 300 hours. So $50 bought you 300 hours of joy. That comes out to 17 cents per hour. That's 9.4x the cost of FFXI/hr
Oh yeah, that makes sense, because we all know FFXI the game itself is FREE! No one had to buy it plus the two and soon to be three expansions for $30 to $50 each on top of their monthly fee and internet connection and $100+ for all the extra PS2 crap if you're playing on PS2 to play it!

[Miriel]

I got my game plus the two expansion packs for $50. :o

[Rostum]

Get a job you hippy bum!

[Assassin_]

talkin to me or dmka? cos i already said i cant get a job for the same reason i wouldnt play ff11 enough to make subscribing to it worthwile.

[Miriel]

I don't really understand your point. You don't have the time or the money to make playing FFXI worthwhile. So you don't play it. That is your decision and your choice. The game itself is not to fault for that.

[DMKA]

I got my game plus the two expansion packs for $50. :o
I got them all together for $30, but that's not the point here. :tongue:

[Rostum]

talkin to me or dmka? cos i already said i cant get a job for the same reason i wouldnt play ff11 enough to make subscribing to it worthwile.

So you're having a cry because you can't play this Final Fantasy? It was designed and made as a hardcore MMORPG, deal with it. If you can't find the money per month, and the time per month to play, then don't get it.

[Lionx]

May i dare sugguest WoW? Its alot more friendly to the casual player thats for sure. For hardcore fans i recommend this game.

[Miriel]

But WoW also has a monthly subscription which appears to be part of Assassin_'s dilemma.

[Rostum]

And WoW's subscription is a few extra bucks.

[Gwelenguchenkus]

30 bucks for FFXI and two expansions is hardly expensive. Even with the monthly fees and the new expansion coming out, it's still much cheaper to play FFXI than to buy a few $50-60 games.

[DMKA]

30 bucks for FFXI and two expansions is hardly expensive. Even with the monthly fees and the new expansion coming out, it's still much cheaper to play FFXI than to buy a few $50-60 games.
But you aren't taking into account all the extra crap you need to play it. I either have to have a real good computer, or need to spend tons of money on hardware upgrades, or spend all that money on all the stuff required to play it on my PS2.

Luckily I can play it ok on my system...it just looks real bad.

[Miriel]

My laptop is pretty mediocre and I can play FFXI on it just fine. And I don't know anyone who has had to pay tons of money for hardware upgrades. The most anyone usually has to do is upgrade their video card, and that itself is usually a good investment.

So, uh, yeah. Spending tons of money in order to play FFXI seems like a gross exaggeration considering that most people can play the game just fine without need to change a thing on their computer.

As for the people who play it on PS2, well that's their choice, and obviously they have the money to burn if they choose to get all that extra stuff in order to play it on the PS2.

[lordblazer]

FFXI is 12.95 a month, the most I've seen is $15 a month. It's really not that much. I use to bitch about it but come on it's $15.
Well Guild WArs doesn't have a subscription fee. and with Lineage 2 you can find private servers and play for free(you download L2 from its official website).

What's amazing for me is the fact that Guild Wars doesn't charge monthly. Mainly because its showing all the big companies that do MMORPGs that you don't need a subscription fee to have a MMORPG>

[Rostum]

Guild Wars isn't a MMORPG. Get your facts straight.

And yes, I have played it, it's relatively cheap for their servers.

[Lionx]

Guild Wars the way its designed is not an MMORPG, its more a glorified Diablo II kinda thing from what i see.

[lordblazer]

Oh yeah, that makes sense, because we all know FFXI the game itself is FREE! No one had to buy it plus the two and soon to be three expansions for $30 to $50 each on top of their monthly fee and internet connection and $100+ for all the extra PS2 crap if you're playing on PS2 to play it!
PSO Online is pretty cheap 5 bucks a month heck even xbox live is cheap its only 5 bucks a montha nd if yu pay yearly its 40 bucks.. Anyway I wouldn't mind paying a MMO subscription fee if its like Lineage 2 were the software is free, but when I'm paying 50 bucks for the software. It seems like a money scheme and that little of the subscription fees are being reinvested into the game. I see this with like most MMO's.

[lordblazer]

Guild Wars the way its designed is not an MMORPG, its more a glorified Diablo II kinda thing from what i see.
Well last itme I check they have an RPG mode and the missions and maps and stuff is designed like PSO to go through its sotryline, but oyu have freedom of mobility and oyu can make cash by trading items and such . It depends on how you're playing the game. If your going to be doing Pvp then PVP if oyu want an RP characte rthen RP character . It is somewhat of a MMORPG because if you choose RP your roleplaying but if your char is a PVP then its competiting . IT has a lot of elements of Lineage 2 I've noticed and also a few of WoW and a little of FF11. I mean I just threw Guild WArs out their because you say it isn't which sitll doesn't tell me why I have to pay over a hundred bucks yearly for all the other MMORPGs.

[Rostum]

Lordblazer, you're an idiot. -_-; You miss the whole point completely. Most MMORPG's that are FFXI, WoW and Everquest, do require monthly fees for certain reasons. Comparing a game like Guild Wars, where it's mainly small lobbies where you can gather only a few people to go out on the field, to a game like FFXI where there can be a lot more than 100+ people in the zone -- well it just defies logic.

The way guild wars' servers are set and made, are a lot different than the standard MMORPG's I've listed above. Whether you want to believe it or not, I find more value in a game like FFXI by paying the monthly fees, than a game like Guild Wars which got really boring, really fast, for me. Part of an MMORPG isn't just the story.

[lordblazer]

Lordblazer, you're an idiot. -_-; You miss the whole point completely. Most MMORPG's that are FFXI, WoW and Everquest, do require monthly fees for certain reasons. Comparing a game like Guild Wars, where it's mainly small lobbies where you can gather only a few people to go out on the field, to a game like FFXI where there can be a lot more than 100+ people in the zone -- well it just defies logic.

The way guild wars' servers are set and made, are a lot different than the standard MMORPG's I've listed above. Whether you want to believe it or not, I find more value in a game like FFXI by paying the monthly fees, than a game like Guild Wars which got really boring, really fast, for me. Part of an MMORPG isn't just the story.
Yeah and thats were it all leads to uh> Me being an idiot. I'm anidiot? I'm an idiot for having objections towards a highly inflated subscription fee. I just laid out a few prices in general. Anyway I'm not a dumbass an dI know that a subscription fee is used for the servers. But that still doesn't mean I can't compain abou the price hell I'm not even playing the game anymore cuz I wasn't getting my money's worth..Which by definition means I wasn't playing it enough out of amonth. SO I just canceled it my friend. I mean you can compare this to when I had to cancel my xbox live subsription due to my xbox sparking out on me.

Anway omecle I know what kind of person you are. Which kinda contributes to the BS of forums ovver the net.. I'm leaving it at that and just going to ignore ya.

[DMKA]

My laptop is pretty mediocre and I can play FFXI on it just fine. And I don't know anyone who has had to pay tons of money for hardware upgrades. The most anyone usually has to do is upgrade their video card, and that itself is usually a good investment.

So, uh, yeah. Spending tons of money in order to play FFXI seems like a gross exaggeration considering that most people can play the game just fine without need to change a thing on their computer.

As for the people who play it on PS2, well that's their choice, and obviously they have the money to burn if they choose to get all that extra stuff in order to play it on the PS2.
My point wasn't that "FFXI costs tons of money to play". My point was "The costs are there, don't pretend like they aren't by speaking like it costs more to buy a game I'll have and be able to play forever without ever paying again like FFX when it's obvious that's a croc" in response to that bogus comparison that completely ignored the cost of the game itself and compared it to the cost of another game at the same time someone posted earlier.

I mean I understand the monthly fee and it's purpose, but I still just hate the idea because like I said, it bugs me by making me feel as if I'm throwing money away, which was my answer to the thread's initial question. The rests of my posts were just for the sake of pointing out the untrue. :)

And yes, it would costs me a ton of money to upgrade my hardware. More than 100 dollars for a video card (or any computer thing other than the computer itself for that matter), is a ton of cash to me. But I'm poor and always have been, so I guess it's a factor in my bitterness.

[Gnostic Yevon]

I don't like monthly fees, but there are good freeware MMOs out there. Rune scape is pretty good so far, if you don't care about grafics. That would be my suggestion if you really want an MMO without fees (they have extra content if you join.

The reason I don't like fees is that it creates an OBLIGATION in some ways. You pay $20 a month, and therefore to get that money back you MUST play many hours per month just to get your money back. so $20 would be slightly under an hour a day, but if you're only free (say because you're a working college student with homework) for a few hours at night, you may not want to spend one of those hours playing an MMO when you could be out on dates or playing soccer or whatever else. FFX and other offline games don't do that. I already own the disk and I can play it as much or as little as I want. I can leave the game unplayed for six months and not worry about paying so my save isn't deleted etc.

[Rostum]

Anway omecle I know what kind of person you are. Which kinda contributes to the BS of forums ovver the net.. I'm leaving it at that and just going to ignore ya.

Man you need to grow up. You have no idea what kind of person I am, and it's ludicrous to even think you do.

Anyways, just because you don't think you got your moneys worth, doesn't mean the price per month is "inflated" as you call it.

Edit: Hell, even DMKA and Gnostic Yevon have made a better arguement, and I find there's to be much more acceptable. Or maybe I'm just not seeing your point due to all the horse crap you put between your lines.

Edit: Me personally? I seriously don't mind paying the 13 dollars a month for it, I've gotten a lot out of this game and it really doesn't consume my real life. I have a girlfriend that I see a lot, I have university, and I still manage to see a few real life friends from high school. I just don't think that 13 dollars is that much money, as it has created hours upon hours of entertainment for me, for over 2 years.

[lordblazer]

Man you need to grow up. You have no idea what kind of person I am, and it's ludicrous to even think you do.

Anyways, just because you don't think you got your moneys worth, doesn't mean the price per month is "inflated" as you call it.

Edit: Hell, even DMKA and Gnostic Yevon have made a better arguement, and I find there's to be much more acceptable. Or maybe I'm just not seeing your point due to all the horse crap you put between your lines.

Edit: Me personally? I seriously don't mind paying the 13 dollars a month for it, I've gotten a lot out of this game and it really doesn't consume my real life. I have a girlfriend that I see a lot, I have university, and I still manage to see a few real life friends from high school. I just don't think that 13 dollars is that much money, as it has created hours upon hours of entertainment for me, for over 2 years.

ME I'vde already told oyu like 6 months ago why I left FF11 and why I have a problem with the monthly fee. I wasn't getting my money's worth. I left because crap happened and I couldn't give this game my attention and the game felt like I was paying them so I can do some work. WEll yeah it did feel like assembly line work. Boring and repetitive. Heck I spend 2 hours just waiting.

But my problemw ith you isn't your objection to my opinion. Its the isults you put in them. They're not even needed to get your point across man. HEll. You called me umb. I know I'm not dumb. Or I wouldn't even be on here typing. You mention the tohers but then again you odn't know me. The fact is. This is a fucking game. I'm just going to state my opinion on it and leave it at that. I shouldn't have to put up an arguement because none of this /xxx.gif/xxx.gif/xxx.gif/xxx.gif is up for debate. Wanna know why?

Beucase in a game you play it. If it isn't fun for oyu then it just isn't If oyu pay monthly for it, and can't even get on once a week. Do you think it'll be woth your time. Point is. Games such as FF11 varies individuall, and thus you can't have much of a debate when one person feels like its repetitive and the other is like "oooorrggg Ig ot money to spend so its fun1!!" I mean you like it then kudos to you dude. You just talk to much /xxx.gif/xxx.gif/xxx.gif/xxx.gif when posting oyur objections.

Thats all I'm sayng anyway omecle lets leave it at that.

[Rostum]

First of all, I don't care why you left the game, it's irrelevant to what we're talking about.

You're the one who stated that this game has a "highly inflated" monthly fee. You're the one comparing a game like Guild Wars to a full on MMORPG. But now you're flip flopping around that, by just saying that it wasn't interesting so it wasn't worth your time or money.

Well c'mon man, which is it?! I can understand if someone can't play because they don't want to spend the money, or because they have no interest in the game, or any other reason. But to say that the monthly fee is jacked, isn't reasonable. This is my arguement, not that I don't believe you lost interest in the game. -_-;


Games such as FF11 varies individuall, and thus you can't have much of a debate when one person feels like its repetitive and the other is like "oooorrggg Ig ot money to spend so its fun1!!" I mean you like it then kudos to you dude.

This has nothing to do with what I've been talking about. But anyways, here I go. I never once said that just because someone doesn't like the game, that anything they say against it is unreasonable.

I'd just like to note:


You called me umb. I know I'm not dumb. Or I wouldn't even be on here typing. You mention the tohers but then again you odn't know me.

I never called you "dumb", and I never said I knew you. If you're so self concious that you have to tell me you aren't dumb, then don't bother replying to my posts.

And please, try to type properly, it takes so long to read through your posts to find out what the hell you're talking about... And the second edit I did on my previous post, was a general thing, not aimed at you. -_-;

[charles55021]

runescape is free, with an optional fee to get some perks

[Rostum]

You mean Run. Escape? That game is horrible.

[Ouch!]

Runescape *is* horrible. It's the kind of game that MMORPG-playing geeks look at and say "Man, whoever plays that game is a geek."

[Mirage]

I'd rather play RO over Runescape ;(

[Assassin_]

So you're having a cry because you can't play this Final Fantasy?
Um...no. Just no.

Anyway, if you miss your subscription for a month, do you lose your cara or just not be able to play for that month? Because if you lose your cara, then Id say there was NO way it wood be worth it, because of the dispair youd go throogh if that happened. If you just cant play for the rest of the month, thats not so bad thogh.

[DMKA]

Um...no. Just no.

Anyway, if you miss your subscription for a month, do you lose your cara or just not be able to play for that month? Because if you lose your cara, then Id say there was NO way it wood be worth it, because of the dispair youd go throogh if that happened. If you just cant play for the rest of the month, thats not so bad thogh.
FFXI keeps your character after you cancel the content I.D. for like...three months I believe. After that it's gone.

It's a fun game, and I do think it's worth the money if you're playing it every day. Or atleast twice a week.

[Assassin_]

Ok 3 months isnt so bad.

[Mirage]

I think keeping the account for only 3 months is bad. Anyway, I think they extended it to 6 months now, but I really think they should keep it alive for like a year.

[Rostum]

I've heard stories that some people have come back after a year and found their character still there.

Remember though, never cancel your PlayOnline ID, only your Content ID. The Content ID is the one that gets charged monthly, and holds the character.

[charles55021]

i have just got my playonline back and haven't yet checked on my character, but i know that i was being charged for it

[Rostum]

Because you didn't cancel your Content ID?

[charles55021]

yea i had to reformat my computer because of a virus and i had my id and password on a mail account that was closed down

[Markus. D]

never buy WoW no matter what.


Hardcore = FFXI

Casual = anything but WoW.

[Lionx]

They keep it up to 1 year now o.o

[Nakor TheBlue Rider]

when I quit FFXI in July 2004 I had no plans to ever returning to FFXI so didnt care if my char was gone after 3 months.

However in July 2005 Square-Enix had this Return to game promotion, where i found out that my character hadnt been deleated yet. I happened to be without an MMO at the time having quit Matrix Online in June 2005 after only 3 months in that game.

When i Came back to FFXI not only did i keep all my Levels and Rank that i had gotten before quitting, When i checked my Mog House I still had a Stack of Beastman Seals and My Old Linkshell Pearls which had since been Broken and Disbanded.

[Markus. D]

Guild Wars the way its designed is not an MMORPG, its more a glorified Diablo II kinda thing from what i see.

pah.... you and your pre-judgement.....

[Rostum]

pah.... you and your pre-judgement.....

Yeah, but the truth is that Guild Wars isn't a full on MMORPG. I still think it's a good game. =)