CoD will be pay to play with next instalment

[Prophet4no1]

I'm not sure how many here play the CoD games. I refuse to by any more aft the whole MW2 debacle, but the latest on the next game is that they are going to subscription based play like WoW. Here is a link to an article about it.

 

http://xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/call-of-duty-6/1068537p1.html

[diveplane]

told ya its getting ridiculous , penny pinching everywhere...

wait till the riots flare up ....sigh

[159th_Viper]

If Mere Mortals are #*# enough to splurge £110 000 000 (Yeah - One Hundred and Ten Million Pounds a Month) on one title alone then it's no Wonder that Greed will Prevail and others will attempt to Jump on the same Bandwagon :music_whistling:

 

Each to their Own I Suppose......:joystick:

[element1108]

Be too busy with a10 to worry about this cod fail. I can't believe how quick I tired of mw2. I think I got too old for it ;)

[XLR8]

Count me out ! I got a nasty taste from MW2.

[Mugenjin]

yea by the time the next cod is out, the DCS A-10 module should also be released (hopefully). and that is gonna occupy pretty much all of my free time :P

[digital_steve]

Another reason to **** off COD series

If they release a vietnam version thats not pay-to-play then i'd think about it... but i'd rather an arma/operation flashpoint vietnam title

[RedTiger]

Seriously...paying to play is fine, nothing wrong with that at all. I'm just guessing the LOMAC boards aren't exactly a bastion of MMO gamers, huh? :P I've actually played some F2P games and wished that a credit card was needed just to filter out some of the irritating kiddies and so the developer could justify a steady stream of content and updates and actually provide rock-solid servers.

 

Pay to play is fine, as long as the game isn't dumbed down unapologetic console port like MW2 is and if it isn't a total flop like every other MMOG besides World of Warcraft is.

 

The problem is that CoD with a subscription will be exactly that -- another MW2 debacle AND a totally inefficient and amateurish operation with crappy lag and crappy customer support. Console gamers will probably eat it up, but for PC I'd probably say they shouldn't even bother. I see a million plus copies sold, but less than 10,000 subs after the first month.

[element1108]

I paid to play warbirds for two plus years and that money alone was worth the squad select series every Sunday. We're talking 200 human planes in historical settings. It was the closest thing to true ww2 air combat I've ever experienced. Dedicated gci, no icons, no colour coding for gci to determine friend or foe, historical radar ranges etc.

 

Being vectored through a fighter sweep to make a run at bombers with escorts never got old. So I'm all for pay to play when the game itself speaks certain truths. Cod in my opinion will never be more than it is now.

 

My opinion is all. :) I'm sure the spoiled rich kids with too much time and not enough parental attention will enjoy this new experience ;).

[Pilotasso]

Things like this makes the PC more and more of a niche gaming machine. Over here Consoles have long relegated PC software to the shelf on the corner where no one bothers to look for.

It will soon come the time where it will be overtaken completely and the only place I can buy parts and software is via E bay. :cry:

 

I miss the 90's and the large computer stores and those shiny PC expos showing the latest and greatest. What a sad situation the entertainment industry is at.

Edited February 16, 2010 by Pilotasso

[Feuerfalke]

Well, it's a logic step. They currently push out new releases on a yearly basis, with little to no upgrade other than the maps and a few details. Since people still buy their ever-same-remakes, though content is reduced more and more, going for a subscription-based model is probably the logic next step.

 

On the other hand, that's just one more sure sign, that MW is going MMO. Many rumors stated so before - maybe they were not mere rumors after all.

[Pilotasso]

what MW and MMO stand for? :huh:

[159th_Viper]

what MW and MMO stand for? :huh:

 

MW - Modern Warfare

MMO - Massively Multiplayer Online

[104th_Crunch]

What about a DCS MMO. I would gladly pay :)

[RedTiger]

What about a DCS MMO. I would gladly pay :)

 

That'd be one heck of an job. There are plenty of small-scale MMOs out there. Many are free to play, but either have a cash shop (you pay real money for in-game currency to buy stuff) or they are straight RMT (real money transaction, you just pay straight-up cash for stuff in-game). Free to play, but you are given heavy incentives to buy stuff to make the game easier or more fun.

 

The challenge would be the infrastructure ED would need to maintain to keep it up and running PLUS the amount of time and research their products take to develope. I don't think that's something they'd even consider. Its one thing when your game is an unrealistic FPS or fantasy hack-and-slash, but a DCS level sim is another!

[Pilotasso]

I actualy use LOMAC as an MMo since I do not do solo play at all. Never made any campaign.

[RedTiger]

I actualy use LOMAC as an MMo since I do not do solo play at all. Never made any campaign.

 

No, you're using it as just a regular multiplayer game. An MMO for Lock On would look something like this:

 

1. Dedicated servers for online play run by ED. All pilot info is stored server-side. There would also be some more robust anti-cheating, again, server-side.

 

2. A large-scale, real-time, persistant play environment that doesn't end when you log off and go to bed. The world persists and 24 hours a day (except for server maintenance down-time) people can fly missions that *hopefully* have an actual impact on the game world to some extent.

 

What this would probably look like is something like Falcon's dynamic campaign, but with players being able to have more roles on either side. Despite the fact that the challenge would be in head to head and the fun would be in co-op, there would be and *should* be some AI for the sake of immerssion, even if its just the equivalent of the civilian automobiles and trains in Lock On.

 

The challenge here would be to have enough roles for everyone to play. If you want a Lock On MMOG to work as best as possible, you really would need player controlled AWACS/GCI and air defenses -- *plenty* of different roles for each player and *plenty* to do during the lull in the action, because you're looking at hundreds of people per server. This would be hard to accomplish in a real-world simulation. In a MMO with a fully realized fantasy world, there is always a task the developer can "invent" for the player, even if its just a solo player. Much of this would be out of scope or just goofy for Lock On -- "lets go kill NPC MiGs over and over for money so I can buy that Aim-120C upgrade I need!" :doh:

 

If you're starting to wonder "what's the point?", you're not alone, I wonder than myself. Much of this you can already do with Lock On, just with no persistance and a lot less "game" -- but there's also a ton more effort needed on the player's part:

 

3. You would probably be paying, either a subscription or some sort of monetary transaction, for a service. ED would need to provide in-game customer support around the clock. There would be an understanding that, barring maitenance or emergency, the servers would be up and at 100% playable condition at all times. New maps/planes/units and other content would also probably be expected. You'd be paying for ED to do all the work.

 

4. If ED wants to really be with the times, they're going to have to have some sort of match-making system or something to separate the casual lone wolves from the squads that are all on teamspeak. This isn't a requirement for a working game, but almost a necessity if they want to attract any sort of substantial audience and keep their subscriptions.

 

Summary: it would be a REALLY bad idea for ED to attempt this. The list of successful MMOs is about 3 or 4 names long and list of failures is about a mile long. It is enormously expensive, time intensive, and a soul-sucking, thankless task. I would personally recommend that ED NEVER do this, simply for their own well-being.

 

Even with the best of intentions and most extreme efforts, most MMOs are un-user friendly, bug-ridden, unstable piles of dog crap. ED should stick with those awesome sims and military contracts. ;)

Edited February 16, 2010 by RedTiger

[Prophet4no1]

^^^^^ Air Warrior 3! I miss that game. I was in on the beta for it. They had some crazy stuff in the beta. I got in a dogfight with a Fokker triplane against a P-38. Also flew a MiG-15 against WW2 era aircraft. It was not realistic by any means but was interesting. All the crazy stuff was in the European theater. The Pacific was pure WW2.

[EtherealN]

Pay to play is fine, as long as the game isn't dumbed down unapologetic console port like MW2 is and if it isn't a total flop like every other MMOG besides World of Warcraft is.

 

Define total flop. I play an MMO (since Jan 2009 it has been sporadic, though... Hmm...) that has been well profitable since April 2003, with a constantly growing userbase. It's only "drawback" is that it's 100% death penalty and almost complete focus on PvP keeps the WoW and EQ crowd out. If that is a drawback... :P

[zakobi]

Define total flop. I play an MMO (since Jan 2009 it has been sporadic, though... Hmm...) that has been well profitable since April 2003, with a constantly growing userbase. It's only "drawback" is that it's 100% death penalty and almost complete focus on PvP keeps the WoW and EQ crowd out. If that is a drawback... :P

 

Is it EVE? (everyone versus everyone)?

[RedTiger]

Define total flop. I play an MMO (since Jan 2009 it has been sporadic, though... Hmm...) that has been well profitable since April 2003, with a constantly growing userbase. It's only "drawback" is that it's 100% death penalty and almost complete focus on PvP keeps the WoW and EQ crowd out. If that is a drawback... :P

 

Flop (just to name a few):

 

- Warhammer Online: total flop. Absolutely no question. Three million box sales and a year later you have like 30,000 subscribers? (correct my numbers if I'm off here) Yeah, you failed. I'm not even sure if they're turning a profit. And that's with EA pulling the strings. ;)

 

- Age of Conan: flopped, but bounced back and got better but....still a flop. The quitting came when everyone got out of Tortage, to my understanding. They've never really recovered. Still profitable, from what I understand, and has a niche player base, but still a flop.

 

- Everquest 2: flopped, and flopped hard. Made to run on a super-fast single core processor that was never invented. Had 1999-style DIKU game play and was in the uneviable position of directly competing with with the launch of WoW. Also DIKU, but with the Blizzard polish. Its much better now, but it never really recovered.

 

I never played AoC, but I have played both WAR and EQ2 at various points in time. Also play/played WoW, no surprise there since everyone and their mother has at some point. :D

 

If the game you play is EVE, well, EVE is in a strange category. I wouldn't call it a flop, but perhaps that's just being a hypocrit because I've named games that had rocky starts as "flops". EVE is certainly growing.

 

Maybe this benchmark for "flop" isn't fair. WoW has set the bar so high, and was in such the right place at the right time, its hard to call any MMO developer with delusions of grandeur that thinks it can compete with it, only to fail, but then holds onto a tiny slice of market share as anything but a flop, no matter if they're profitable or not. If those MMOs had decided to not try to "out-WoW WoW", I'd be more inclined to look on them as successes. This is all just my opinion, of course.

Edited February 16, 2010 by RedTiger

[digital_steve]

If COD went pay to play, it'd have to implement some pretty amazing stuff... otherwise the next title that is similar and has free multiplayer will just kill it.

 

i know one thing, be ****ed if ever pay to play a COD game

[EtherealN]

Yes RedTiger, EVE is the one.

 

And well, my own definition of "flop" would be "did it fail to make a profit?". If the answer is yes, then it's a flop, if the answer is no, then it isn't.

 

But yeah, it is a bit of nitpicking, since I certainly would agree that there have been some ten billion MMO's launched and only very few of them would be what I perceive as quality. And indeed, most of them died about as fast as they deserved. :P

[topol-m]

Pay to play? Call of Duty??? Now that`s what I call perversion. The producers are fu....g with us. I ain`t participating in this gay fest. :mad:

[Groove]

As long as i will get a red headband, explosive arrows and blue light sticks they can charge me whatever they want! :D