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What makes this game worth $13/£10 per month?


Netherspark

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After reading through the kickstarter page I see that the devs have decided on a subscription model, at $13/£10 per month, a similar price to other popular MMO's.  But I have to ask, what exactly justifies this price?

 

Games like World of Warcraft, for their £10 per month subscription add a continous steam of new content.  In Dual Univese though, its content is entirely player-made. So what will Dual Universe be adding to the game on a continous basis to justify that ongoing subscription?

 

Dual Univese looks like a great game, but I don't see how it's worth paying a subscription for, let alone one as high as that.

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Probably only you can decide by yourself if it's worth the price once it's finished. 

 

My numbers differ from yours though (to the worse). 1 DAC = 18€, which is approx $20 or about 15 gbp?

I see price in euros, maybe it's affected by VAT or something, so in Pounds and USD are therefore cheaper...

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 But I have to ask, what exactly justifies this price?

 

 So what will Dual Universe be adding to the game on a continous basis to justify that ongoing subscription?

 

 

Single Shard Servers and Quality of Service

 

If you don't wanna pay, then just make enough money through grinding/mining/selling stuff to pay for DACs

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I like to think of it as a service, which it really is. And I know to support services (technical infrastructure, customer support, ongoing development, etc), there has to be a baseline revenue stream.. a steady subscription forms that base!

 

Don't forget there is no $60 cost (or any cost) to actually buy the game as well, and you can buy subscription months just by playing the game.

 

Seeing as how this game is crowdfunded and privately funded, all of the revenue goes back to the developers not a publisher and you can bet JC and team will reinvest substantially into bringing new features and content to the game!

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Honestly, it is really cheap when yuou think about it. It is a small fee for a whole month of potential fun. Also, it makes it more likely for the game to stay fair and interesting, without putting in annoying microtransactions.

It is actually... ROUGHLY 60 hours of fun per dollar which is amazing.

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After reading through the kickstarter page I see that the devs have decided on a subscription model, at $13/£10 per month, a similar price to other popular MMO's.  But I have to ask, what exactly justifies this price?

 

Games like World of Warcraft, for their £10 per month subscription add a continous steam of new content.  In Dual Univese though, its content is entirely player-made. So what will Dual Universe be adding to the game on a continous basis to justify that ongoing subscription?

 

Dual Univese looks like a great game, but I don't see how it's worth paying a subscription for, let alone one as high as that.

 

Servers, new gameplay mechanics that are effectively contents (maybe one day we'll have wormholes, artifact to discover, alien invasion, ...), new elements for players to build better ships/stations (more variety and different options), better character personalization, new materials, and so on. There's a lot of stuff that could be added, contents isn't just a new wow map or a new dungeon. 

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@N

 

After reading through the kickstarter page I see that the devs have decided on a subscription model, at $13/£10 per month, a similar price to other popular MMO's.  But I have to ask, what exactly justifies this price?

 

Games like World of Warcraft, for their £10 per month subscription add a continous steam of new content.  In Dual Univese though, its content is entirely player-made. So what will Dual Universe be adding to the game on a continous basis to justify that ongoing subscription?

 

Dual Univese looks like a great game, but I don't see how it's worth paying a subscription for, let alone one as high as that.

 

Actually, you're just thinking about this using a traditional, (quite old now) MMO lens.

 

DU's content is player-made. But not entirely as far as we know - that could happen. But, more's the point - Alioth, the system, the Universe - as we discover these things (and given procedural generation) - this is new content. Persistent new content.

 

And really - that's what the REAL value proposition of a P2P system over DU is - it never gets turned off. That's the beauty of all this.

 

They are starting their development journey now, with a drop date of Dec. 18. One only has to consider the ubiquitous techs which will be in play at that point that WoW and EvE can't match.

 

For instance - today, No Man's Sky, despite criticism, shows the power of procedural generation at scale - DU will take that further.

 

And with the advent of blockchain tech - DU could leverage Distributed Application technologies - (bet they are already looking at it) - the beauty of which is that you can make an MMO as awesome as DU, with massively reduced server costs, as the more people play, the more compute power you effectively get. (Check out Zeronet website's for instance). And literally, the "servers" in models like that can't crash as the data comprising the universe becomes peer to peer and consensus based - essentially any modern online game, on steroids, with a single source of uncorruptible truth at it's core. That both we and NQ made.

 

THAT's why I'll pay a sub happily - because I'm paying for persistence. And a sub means that if I want to take a 2 month break or even a one year break - say I go on an overseas holiday or if I was a soldier, get deployed - I can. I reactivate my account and EVERYTHING is as it was, but changed in a way that has provenance - a real change history just like the real world. No resets, no take backs. The closest thing to a real (in a persistent tangible, non-transient or ethereal sense) alternate reality you will ever likely see.

 

Don't get me wrong - all good things come to an end, I know - but while DU is alive, it will be a single game continuum - you will really make history - and that's worth it.

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I think we have at least a half dozen people saying the same thing in this thread alone, and probably a dozen more similar threads with more on this, but I will echo it as well. I dont understand why it is so hard for people to grasp.

 

The servers to run this cost a lot, and it takes a lot of planning and maintence to keep it running smooth, that alone justifies a P2P.

And before you go on about F2P with shops or guildwars, dont bother. Games like GW are fundamentally different on how they are run server side. An you cant expect a small company to rely on sporatic trinket sales to a small portion of the community to fund the game for all in a F2P system. Furthermore it puches incentives to design a new outfit over the next groundbreaking feature or a new component, as thats what makes the money. When you arent sure if you'll have eneough income to keep the lights on, how can you invest in further development.

To get close to the infrastructure needed you have to look at Eve. No other game of this type matches its scale and longevity. And before you claim they went F2P I will stop you, they didn't. Essentially they extended their trial peroid in hopes to bring in new dedicated players. Any serious player will have to pay or flip timecards.

And to truely answer your question, what do you get from the sub, aside from the servers, we can also look at eve. The answer is more content. Throughout the years Eve has invested in better hardware, better coding, new items, and new mechanics and features. From high performance servers for battles, to t3 ships and wormholes. They regurally add new features and game changing items.

 

While NQ wont be making the ships, they do make the components and the voxel items we will use. They can also invest further into the mechanics, giving us new features or optomized performance based on they game play that emerges. Actual character creation, higher tech levels, new Arks, NPC enemies, wormholes, Life support, and the list can go on. These are all things, to my understanding, that will not be in the game at launch. Some it seems NQ intends to impliment later, others are things they could consider. When we see the final game the community will have countless request of features they would like added or removed from the game. Without a source of funding NQ cant achieve any of them. The initial influx of money from 1 time sales would run out. F2P wouldnt incentivise this type of development and wouldnt be a reliable revenue stream.

I wouldnt want it to be anything but P2P, as I know thats the only model that gives reliable inventive to keep inproving the game.

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Cloud Servers = Not your average free-2-play toaster of a server tech.

Average toaster server = used by Korean F2P trash because it's cheap and has no real upkeep costs.

Clou Servers (revolutionary idea for MMOs) = They cost.




 

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After reading through the kickstarter page I see that the devs have decided on a subscription model, at $13/£10 per month, a similar price to other popular MMO's.  But I have to ask, what exactly justifies this price?

 

Games like World of Warcraft, for their £10 per month subscription add a continous steam of new content.  In Dual Univese though, its content is entirely player-made. So what will Dual Universe be adding to the game on a continous basis to justify that ongoing subscription?

 

Dual Univese looks like a great game, but I don't see how it's worth paying a subscription for, let alone one as high as that.

 

Functionalities, possibilities, enhanced game mechanics, new construct types, enhanced galactic and astral manipulations, general expansion of the universe, etc...

 

After that it'll be up to you to add content. Some players are willing to pay for a great big sandbox to play in and the tools to do the digging. Other's like paying to be led by the nose through "theme park" content. Which type of player are you?

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Functionalities, possibilities, enhanced game mechanics, new construct types, enhanced galactic and astral manipulations, general expansion of the universe, etc...

 

After that it'll be up to you to add content. Some players are willing to pay for a great big sandbox to play in and the tools to do the digging. Other's like paying to be led by the nose through "theme park" content. Which type of player are you?

 

Me? Well I am the type of player who digs that sandbox, and i keep digging .. all the way to china .. and then I am lead by nose to the food market where I indulge ... I Indulge like a king!!!!!

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Thanks NQ for having cleared the model. Backers have received an e-mail explaining what has been said a few times, but some of us, or maybe only me, am a slow learner :)

So a price ranging from 10 to 13 euros per month is a good price for me.

 

Moreover, I don't know what's the long term plan of games like Elite or Star Citizen. Not saying those will fall at all, but maintaining a shingle shard universe must cost money, and this ensures it is supported indefinitely. I would be concerned if there was no subscription model, as I am for the other games I've mentioned.

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Thanks NQ for having cleared the model. Backers have received an e-mail explaining what has been said a few times, but some of us, or maybe only me, am a slow learner :)

So a price ranging from 10 to 13 euros per month is a good price for me.

 

Moreover, I don't know what's the long term plan of games like Elite or Star Citizen. Not saying those will fall at all, but maintaining a shingle shard universe must cost money, and this ensures it is supported indefinitely. I would be concerned if there was no subscription model, as I am for the other games I've mentioned.

Star Citizen has cleared that up. People will be spending real money on newer models of ships in-game. Same deal with people who buy iPhone 6, then the next year they buy iPhone 6S, next year they buy iPhone 6XXL and so on.

 

Make what you wish out of it.

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After reading through the kickstarter page I see that the devs have decided on a subscription model, at $13/£10 per month, a similar price to other popular MMO's.  But I have to ask, what exactly justifies this price?

 

Games like World of Warcraft, for their £10 per month subscription add a continous steam of new content.  In Dual Univese though, its content is entirely player-made. So what will Dual Universe be adding to the game on a continous basis to justify that ongoing subscription?

 

Dual Univese looks like a great game, but I don't see how it's worth paying a subscription for, let alone one as high as that.

 

My Assumption would be better tools, More fleshed out tools, More fleshed out Mechanics in terms of constructs, More Elements that aren't made by players but designed by programmers artists, More fleshed out Organisational structure etc.

 

Continuous work on their singleshard infrastructure to make it a clean smooth experience during battles.

 

Continuous work on making their game environment beautiful. 

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After reading through the kickstarter page I see that the devs have decided on a subscription model, at $13/£10 per month, a similar price to other popular MMO's.  But I have to ask, what exactly justifies this price?

 

Games like World of Warcraft, for their £10 per month subscription add a continous steam of new content.  In Dual Univese though, its content is entirely player-made. So what will Dual Universe be adding to the game on a continous basis to justify that ongoing subscription?

 

Dual Univese looks like a great game, but I don't see how it's worth paying a subscription for, let alone one as high as that.

The dev mentioned in some interviews that there will be (free) expansions, for example stargates wont be in the game at the beginning and will be added later (i can dig up the inverview where jc says that)

further more a server set up like the ones this game will use isnt cheap, in fact its ridicoulusly expensive

 

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Star Citizen has cleared that up. People will be spending real money on newer models of ships in-game. Same deal with people who buy iPhone 6, then the next year they buy iPhone 6S, next year they buy iPhone 6XXL and so on.

 

Make what you wish out of it.

 

I thought that once live, you could not buy ships with real money. In fact, people in the forums seem so possitive about it, that I keep giving credit.

Anyway, I want SC to succeed as much as I want for Dual Universe, whatever SC model is. And I keep my point: EVE is proof that, provided people enjoy it, the subscription model works.

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Probably only you can decide by yourself if it's worth the price once it's finished. 

 

My numbers differ from yours though (to the worse). 1 DAC = 18€, which is approx $20 or about 15 gbp?

I see price in euros, maybe it's affected by VAT or something, so in Pounds and USD are therefore cheaper...

The DAC prices will be higher than the monthly subscription:

 

As you can notice, the real money price of a DAC will be higher than the normal price of one month of subscription, which may have caused confusion as some people, quite understandingly, assumed that the monthly premium sub would cost as much as a DAC. This is not the case.

 

For me it's absolutely ok to have a monthly fee, i would pay even more if i get a stable game with constant enhancements and good support in change.

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I would be okay with a system of payment that isn't so constricted by time. I would never be willing to pay on a monthly basis. The constraint of only being able to get online for a month is suffocating. So why not replace that model with a similar one that is essentially buying hours to play the game, so that it is still a subscription, but instead of being pressured to play the game as much as possible, one could decide that the game in it's current state just doesn't suit them and would rather wait a while and save the hours they bought until a later time when the person actually wants to play. 

 

I personally find this beneficial in that it gives the player freedom to play when they want to play and not be "forced" into playing the game. This was something I absolutely hated about the free trial for EVE Online. It was timed. The game still gets a constant stream of income, since the player will eventually run out of hours and have to pay for more.

 

 

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I would be okay with a system of payment that isn't so constricted by time. I would never be willing to pay on a monthly basis. The constraint of only being able to get online for a month is suffocating. So why not replace that model with a similar one that is essentially buying hours to play the game, so that it is still a subscription, but instead of being pressured to play the game as much as possible, one could decide that the game in it's current state just doesn't suit them and would rather wait a while and save the hours they bought until a later time when the person actually wants to play. 

 

I personally find this beneficial in that it gives the player freedom to play when they want to play and not be "forced" into playing the game. This was something I absolutely hated about the free trial for EVE Online. It was timed. The game still gets a constant stream of income, since the player will eventually run out of hours and have to pay for more.

 

A few times in Eve I wished they had a system like this. But for those who play a lot it could become a lot more costly as well. I would think NQ would have to offer both options in some form for the intense players. 

 

The one thing I would have to say against what you said is in relation to waiting for the game to develop. You can always just cancel your sub for a few months or however long you intend to stay off. Just sub up when youre ready to play again. 

Also they mentioned some sort of F2P trial system as well. I am uncertain of its nature but it seems to be leaning towards what Eve will be doing on its limited F2P function. 

 

And as I have been telling everyone who complains about the sub. It is expected to be <$15 a month. If you have a computer that can handle the game and can pay for power you should be able to afford that. Seriously thats less than the cost of a cheap meal at most places now adays. 

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