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[Andir]

Free doesn't mean you should automatically go for it, especially when you aren't that interested in it to begin with.

If that were the case, why would one even post in the thread?

[nenjin]

Because we _had_ interest and now we don't? When did people go all Fanboi over HG London?

[Andir]

Not sure that anyone is.  Just curious why you'd make a big stink over something you don't intend on playing.  If people did that, these forums would be full of hate threads for people with no intent to play DF.

[Andir]

bait-and-switch

I see no bait and switch.  All free MMOs introduce you with a limited amount of content and ask for you to pay additional fees [for more.]

[nenjin]

Not sure that anyone is.  Just curious why you'd make a big stink over something you don't intend on playing.

Did I wake up in the Twilight Zone today? Because this thread is about average.

If this were a random indie game, I'd be all for the hand-wringing about how terrible we all are. But this is HG London, a game which earned so much hate it sank to the bottom of the ocean only to rise again as a barnacle encrusted zombie of its former self. Perhaps you should save your angst for a game that actually deserves it?

And we're going to disagree about the B&S. F2P implies micro payments for non-critical content to me. This is really just an extended demo. That definitely strikes me as a bait and switch. It's not like Spiral Knights says "F2P MMO....just pay $10 after level 20 to keep playing!"

[hemmingjay]

Normally I agree with you Nenjin, but I have to disagree here. Many F2P games require payment for content beyond the initial offering such as DDO, Lord of The Rings Online, and even now World of Warcraft. Some games do survive by offering just cosmetic shops, but few of the high quality ones still do this.

Also, Hellgate didn't fail because it wasn't well received, it simply failed due to a poor business model. The company had a very good single player game at the time and then someone in the business dev office got the idea to turn it into an MMO. Unfortunately the game wasn't designed for this and it feels disjointed when playing it as an mmo. The single player was and still is a pretty decent game. We do agree on one thing though, it's not worth buying it like this.

[nenjin]

That's the other thing that's been niggling me about this. I knew Hellgate was a diablo-esqe game, i.e it's SP with MP content and design. So when people turn around and start calling it a F2P MMO, I don't really even know how to react to it. I buy SP games readily. I don't buy or play MMOs readily, especially F2P ones because I generally don't like the designs, the artificial limitations or how much you have to invest in MMOs just to get settled and see if it will be worth it long-term.

So HG seems like it has enough red flag issues for me to stay away from it. More than enough, really. If it bothers some people that others wanted to opine about it, sorry. But this is a gaming forum for opinions, not hive-mind agreement.

As for what full-fledged MMOs do.....I feel like WoW is pretty honest. Get an time-unlimited demo capped at Level 20, pay a sub for the full game. That makes sense to me in the context of an MMO. Using a downloader client to get a 6 gig game that is SP with MP trappings, and having to pay beyond Chapter 2, just sounds like an extension of the wonky business thinking that made people go "Uh no" in the first place.

Put yet another way....If Diablo 3 released tomorrow and said "You download the whole game and then pay $60 to play beyond Act I" I'd be asking them the same question. "Why didn't you guys just do a demo?"

[Andir]

Put yet another way....If Diablo 3 released tomorrow and said "You download the whole game and then pay $60 to play beyond Act I" I'd be asking them the same question. "Why didn't you guys just do a demo?"

No, I'd consider it the same model that shareware used back in the 90s.  This is not a new or innovative scheme.  You used to get a disk with a game on it that required you pay some fee, get a key and unlock the rest.  I can think of at least three other games that have done this within the past 5 years.  It's not new.  It's not overly draconian or reaching.  It's not something I'd get all huffed up about and post melodramatically about feeling ripped off in any way.  It's simply a sales model.

On the topic brought up: The sole reason I think HG died was because they charged a monthly fee for multiplayer when MMOs were about being able to interact with tons of people in one world in multiple zones at pretty much any point in your progression.  It felt too broken up to me (and a bit "rail like" for an MMO) to push you from one station to the next in your leveling curve.  It felt too much like a multiplayer game (which were then included in other games with the game cost) that someone added an asinine monthly fee to.

[nenjin]

No, I'd consider it the same model that shareware used back in the 90s.

*glances at comments about the downloader*

I wouldn't consider it the exact same business model. If I were paying for the download by the gig through my ISP, it'd be a different ball game entirely.

[Neonivek]

On a side note...

I consider a game where you get the first act for free but the rest isn't... to be a Demo in essence (except with the full game attached)

[Andir]

If I were paying for the download by the gig through my ISP, it'd be a different ball game entirely.

That's not necessarily our fault.  I have no caps on my Internet and see no problem/difference with it.  It's the same model with a different medium of data transfer.

[nenjin]

And more hoops. That's really what I'm getting sensitive to these days. When MW4 had their free download period, I had to download the Mektek installer and it was like a super shitty version of Steam, and was so bad I eventually ended up getting the game file through a bit torrent site instead. It ended up being worth it, because it was the full game and MW is awesome.

But I'm steadily picking up more and more of these things as more non-indie games try these kinds of business models. And it's wearing a little thin. The hoops, plus the baggage and history, plus the demo-nature of it....sounds like more effort than it's worth.