NCSoft decides Paragon is Para-gone.

na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/news ... nk_you.php

Sad seeing another MMO studio take a hit, ripples through the industry rattle people pretty hard.

--Micah

Meh they shot themselves in the foot when they went Free-To-Play. I used to be a die hard CoH player, started in Paragon around 2005 finally quit for good when they brought out the free to play model. I loved the game in its younger years and things got worse then a little better than worse and finally they killed it. I knew this was coming and myself along with all the other major players told them so as well. Peace out Paragon City.

People like to belittle the F2P model. At work we have LOTRO and DDO. We have FLOURISHED since going F2P. The reality is, Microtransactions (MTX) can be done well or they can be done poorly.

You need to balance your desire to monetize the game with the quality of things you put up for sale along with making sure you provide items that are worth what you charge for them. This is often difficult to judge.

I think if you pay attention to the amount of "craps" in the Apple App Store that are based ENTIRELY on MTX (any of the Kabam games, etc) you will see games with a very, VERY short time to market (iOS games take on average a few months to a year to develop), people throw silly amounts at (the number of people who dump $100s into Evony clones is amazing) and yet have very short operational lifetimes (as opposed to MMOs running for 5-6 years).. and right now people are really working hard to try to figure out where MMOs belong in the marketplace.

They are expensive to build, expensive to operate and that's a difficult business model to sustain - but if they vanish, the gaming industry as a whole will lose out on more than just games to play, but the COMMUNITIES that MMOs create.

I really fear that...

--Micah

Yeah, I agree with Akkim. A F2P model should be used to create supplement of content and the player doesn't feel like he's paying too much for it. DDO has nailed this down perfectly. And just look at LoL. You'd be silly to say it's going under anytime soon.

Well, MMO's are pretty risky ventures, since so many have fumbled in the past and haven't reached the goals that publishers/shareholders have put before them, so every new one is anticipated with some reflexive caution. And you can only blame the publishers/shareholders that rushed these games out the door with major flaws within their core design, without considering that it might flop and might not reach their predicted numbers. The whole industry should become more educated in that part. Just because something works for someone, doesn't mean it'll work the same way for you. But innovation and investment in the same sentence for some people is a dirty, dirty word.

I wasn't attacking the F2P business model more than I was attacking the Paragon Studio's F2P Model, they made a huge mistake in how they implemented the system and also how they *@&# out prominent players. This also goes hand in hand with Positrons persistent tweaking and "balancing" of the game structure itself. None the less I have downloaded the game again and will head on there from time to time and see how everything ends.

Some F2P games are just too expensive to get the kind of full experience I want out of a game making a subscription based or a full a retail priced game more appealing. Tribes Ascend for example. I've spent damn near $100 on that game and I don't even have half of the content. By content I mean guns. 100 dollars and I don't even have all the guns let alone all the perks, grenades, accessories, skins, voice packs, etc.

People seem to frown on the subscription model or paying full price for a game but at least when you do that you can jump into game and have everything at your disposal.

League of Legends is the best example of of a F2P done right. I never feel like I have to spend more money to get a better experience or to do better in a match.

Sent from my EVO 4G LTE.

That's one thing I really do like about LOTRO/DDO - in addition to the F2P system, we do have cheaper subscriptions ("VIP") which both allow you full access to the content while you keep the subscription going in addition to a monthly stipend of in-game currency to hog up whatever you want from the MTX shop.

...that and I love giving away point codes so people like me! =)

--Micah

[quote="[BBF"]Shahal]
Some F2P games are just too expensive to get the kind of full experience I want out of a game making a subscription based or a full a retail priced game more appealing. Tribes Ascend for example. I've spent damn near $100 on that game and I don't even have half of the content. By content I mean guns. 100 dollars and I don't even have all the guns let alone all the perks, grenades, accessories, skins, voice packs, etc.

People seem to frown on the subscription model or paying full price for a game but at least when you do that you can jump into game and have everything at your disposal.

League of Legends is the best example of of a F2P done right. I never feel like I have to spend more money to get a better experience or to do better in a match.

Sent from my EVO 4G LTE.
[/quote]

Personally, I haven't spent a dime on Tribes.

But yeah, it's crazy expensive to buy everything in there, they should really decrease the price of individual guns and bundle them up more. Though, if they haven't done already, they aren't experiencing drops in revenue, so everyone's still paying the same insane amounts for them.

[quote="[BBF"] Akkim]
That's one thing I really do like about LOTRO/DDO - in addition to the F2P system, we do have cheaper subscriptions ("VIP") which both allow you full access to the content while you keep the subscription going in addition to a monthly stipend of in-game currency to hog up whatever you want from the MTX shop.

...that and I love giving away point codes so people like me! =)

--Micah
[/quote]

Although I'm not a huge fan of either of those games, I like that there are options like that. You can either do the pay as you go approach or have a subscriprion. More games should have that option.

Sent from my EVO 4G LTE.

[quote="[BBF"] Akkim]
That's one thing I really do like about LOTRO/DDO - in addition to the F2P system, we do have cheaper subscriptions ("VIP") which both allow you full access to the content while you keep the subscription going in addition to a monthly stipend of in-game currency to hog up whatever you want from the MTX shop.

...that and I love giving away point codes so people like me! =)

--Micah
[/quote]

LMAO!