How many Emp players are going to play Generations

[Mahdi]

Lke the title says, how many of you who play Emperor are going to play Dune Generations?

[DjCiD]

as long as its not to expensive on the pay to play thin gi am  ;D

[Frodo_I]

nope, i think paying to play is an outrage.  If they make you pay to play i'm not doing it.

I'm all for free internet play, and i'm not going to support a game that isn't

[Taqwa11]

I agree with Frodo: I'm not interested in buying a game and then paying to play it.  That's ridiculous, and the only way such a concept even works is because the companies making those games know that stupid people will fall for it.  In other words, those companies do it only because they know there really is "a sucker born every minute."

[Acriku]

Looks to me like you guys need a lesson.

First of all, it isn't a scheme to get rich from the little people across the world. It's a reasonable plan, and is important to have. You see, when you play online, you are playing on their servers. Maintaining and managing servers isn't free, and needs money to keep them alive. Also, the game will be getting support all the time, you think they would do that for free? When you pay online, you are paying to access costing servers, using the support made by workers, and using patches ( a lot of them will be made) by workers. The pay is reasonable and it should be a great game, so cheer up and buy it! :)

[DjCiD]

so i take it Frodo I and Taq wont be playing Earth & Beyond either sinces its pay to play; and on top of that its a online only game.

[Frodo_I]

you figure right Dj  ;D

[Taqwa11]

Correctamundo!   LOL.  Nope, it's bullcaca, even if they DO provide patches and server service.  It's bullcaca because the good companies like Blizzard have been doing that already and only charging you the high price of the game.  You can bet your ass that Blizzard will be on top of things for WCIII, and it won't cost you more than the 60 bucks for the game to play it and enjoy it.

[Navaros]

Wow Dune Generations makes you pay every month?

I did not know that, but now that I do, I DEFINTELY will never be playing it.

Paying each month just to *play* a game that you have already purchased is the biggest form of extortion since the Romans invented taxes.

I hope all other PC gamers stop supporting this form of extortion.

[Taqwa11]

Yeah, I know that World of Warcraft is one of those massive multiplayer pay-per-play games.  I hope Blizzard is just doing it for that one type of game, or else they, too, will lose my business if Warcraft IV or whatever the next RTS is goes to that pay-per-play format.  For me to ever pay to play an already high-priced PC game, it would have to be much, much better than anything else out there.

[sneezer3]

not me..  the chances of that are about 10% vs 90% ::)

[Razorox]

dune generations? What the hell is that! No real gamer would play such a blasphemously pathetic game...only the hard-core dune fans who aren't after the best gaming experience, but only another piece of merchandise that says "dune" on the cover. Wait for C & C generals...  ;)

[DjCiD]

why wait for Generals? just mark over Empereor on ur CD pretend they are army men instead of Dune ones and you'll have a very similar game... only exception is Generals will have support (for a few months) then you wouldnt be able to tell the difference

[Taqwa11]

I doubt that.  C&C is much better than WOL as far as supporting their games, even if they are a sister company.  Also, Generals will have the amazing 3D of Emperor, but with better scenery and locales, as well as all the gameplay features of RA2 and then some.  I'll definitely get Generals when it comes out.  

[DjCiD]

not me i have enuff WW/EA/C&C coasters (what else am i supposed to do with them?

[Babylon]

I'm gonna play it! Don't care if I have to pay. I have enough *free* games to make up for it  ;)

[nampigai]

what are you whining about,  it's only fair that they take money for their services, you pay when you call from the phone or ride a cap don't you?

[Taqwa11]

Well, as long as they have suckers like you out there, yes they can get away with it.  Game prices are steadily going up anyhow, and now they want to charge just to play them too.  Next thing you know, it'll cost you just to send one of these messages on an internet forum.

[Babylon]

what are you whining about,

[Navaros]

Well, as long as they have suckers like you out there, yes they can get away with it.

[Razorox]

I completely agree with Navaros. Games are already freakishly expensive, without having to pay-per-play. New blockbuster games range from $59.99 to $79.99 (canadian) some of the collectors editions can even reach $100! If a game costs $70 bucks and the company sells 250,000 copies (not such an abstract number) the company would make $17.5 million off that one game! That should be enough to keep them happy for a while, especially considering most companies come out with at least 3 games per year. If they start charging me to play a game I have already payed good money for, I will start making them pay for the gas in my car when i drive to the store to buy the game, and then i will make them pay my electricity bill for my computer, then I will make them pay for the repairs on my computer when my cd-rom dies from playing their game...ya right, seems pretty outrageous huh? Well it's not too much different from game companies charging people to play their games. The only way I can see this being somewhat reasonable is if they drop the initial purchase price...but then the PC industry will turn into a home arcade "please insert credit card number here to continue"   YAH RIGHT KISS MY A$$  ::)

[Gobalopper]

Guys charging to play a game isn't anything new, Everquest has been doing it for a while now. With any online game like Generations you also have to factor in the cost of keeping the servers running and paying for the bandwidth. Then you also have to staff writers and other such people to keep the game world dynamic and continue the storyline. Unlike most other singleplayer games that allow you to also play with a few other players over the net with Generations there will be thousands of people playing at the same time.

And Razorox not all the money from game sales goes directly back to the developer, there are other people that have to get paid along the way, and games are not cheap to make either.

[Soul_-_Reaver]

I don't know all about the games you speak of but i have one view on it...

I am a true hardcore gamer, i play many many games often. Also for most games that i play online i have my own servers etc... So would these games still charge if you set up your own servers? If so it's complete lunacy.

Perhaps they will not allow you to create your own servers, ok it's fair enough if you play on their servers then you pay.. however they should give you the choice, but if they do so then people will play on public servers for free, unless everyone who runs a server decided to do pay per play too.

Now i ocme to my main point... If this trend continues then what does it mean? A hardcore gamer like myself playing 30+ games often within each week, well imdagine several years in the future and those 30 games are all the newest and best games out, and i have payed for each game to own it and then pay each month for each game!? Just consider what that means.... it's outrageous.

If this happens it will mean people must dedicate to only as many games as they can afford. This will lead to a customer shortage for many companies, as people will become more cautious as to what they buy, i for instance buy every new game that sounds good, but i would have to stop and carefully consider how good the games are, i would have to see them in action to decide if it's worth my money.

This campaign is doomed to fail if people can understand the consequences, but it's rare for people to stop and think nowadays and i am sure a multitude of muppets will still go out and buy the games and their campaign will be a success because people couldn't stop and think.

If everyone wants a perfect example i illustrate the problem with petrol!

Now if you think about it you will see a similar structure, i'll make another post on it another time so that you may understand how thigns are going, i think i've written enough for most of you to simply skip this post but it contains many valid points.

[path_xiii]

one word: elitism

[SurlyPIG]

Game : an activity engaged in for diversion or amusement

Is this "pay to play" trend in computer games a sign of growing corporate greed in the slumping high tech sector, or a sign of something far, FAR more sinister?

I think it's both.  As stated in the preceeding definition, a game is something you play to have fun, distract yourself from pressure etc.  That has become totally lost in the modern PC game industry.  I see nothing wrong with making an initial payment to buy a game and support the developers, but a monthly fee?  Ridiculas!  I enjoy playing lots of types of games - and i don't mean just computer games - I mean sports, crosswords, activities, hell even monopoly with my cousins.

I would consciously look for games, in the future, that are free to play, at least single player.  From what I heard dune generations doesn't even have a single player, making the game literally useless if you don't "pay up".

IF it gets to the point where all games have fees to play, I would stop playing computer games alltogether.  I spend time playing games ane that's enough for me.  I wouldn't throw my money at something that isn't even real in life.  A computer game is the developers perception of some fictional work/story.  If I had to pay some sort of playing fee, I'd turn my computer off, go outside and play sports with my friends or something.  Thats a much more productive way to spend time anyway, and if you tack a fee on to computer games it makes them totally illogical to play.

Westwood, Blizzard, and any company that makes games hasn't required an online fee up until this point and they don't need one now.

I suspect, however that there will be the same division among the developers as there is between the consumers, and the people on this board.  If I were a developer, and I wanted to veer away from this pay to play trend, I would design games that don't require payments to operate thier online servers.  I'd make them either the style of emperor, where a small part of the inital cost pays for free online servers, or the style of half-life, where independant parties can easily establish their own servers for people to play on.  They'd have a hell of a time keeping the third party servers cheat-free, but at least it WOULD be free.