If WOW was free...

[Jargalhurts]

I just want to ask you guys that, what if WOW didn't had a monthly payment from the players to play? Would that be good? Would that be bad? Share your opinions here

 

[Kala]

It would be awesome. Blizzard wouldn't make any money with WoW, and forget that ***** game,
and make WC IV!!!!!!

 

[DarkAngelAzazel]

Well there are always private servers you can play on which doesn't cost monthly.

As a game WoW is great but you need mates to play it with you.
That's why you should have some friends when playing on a private server because normally the population is not that huge on those servers.

The terrain is nicely done and the quests are interesting.
I like the game.

 

[Tyranid]

It would be awesome. Blizzard wouldn't make any money with WoW, and forget that ***** game,
and make WC IV!!!!!!

... Or then it would just result in more expansions being released with less time between them to make up for the lost profit from monthly fees. On top of that Blizzard might focus on adding buyable content into the game like mounts, vanity stuff, etc.

 

[Grey Nightmare]

It'd make me try it. atm I won't even touch a trial for a game with a subscription tag, because even if I liked it I couldn't justify paying for it.

 

[Super-Sheep]

Believe me. It would be worse.

 

[MortAr]

If WoW was free, you wouldn't play SC2 now and expect D3 come.

 

[Oohforf]

Honestly, if WoW was free, it would have an EVEN WORSE community, because those little 10 year olds don't need to beg their mom to pay a subscription, and maybe it would have one of those crap cash shops >.<

But I would still play it.

 

[Statharas]

If WoW was free, then it would such balls.

Say you got to level 80, and then, you got the last piece of tier you can get. All the gold you can hold. All the items, mounts, pets, w/e you can get. Then, there's just nothing to do. Wait, you have so much gathered! Why lose it? Oh my, you can't let all that go!

What would you do? Say goodbye to all the stuff you have obtained?

 

[Super-Sheep]

I just found out that I have paid 300 euros for subscriptions. (not including expansions)

It may sound like a big sum but I have played since the end of 2006 and its now soon 2011 even thought I didnt play every month.

The payment should not be taken as "haha lol who pays 300 for a game". Its not like a game... Its just a payment for entertaining.

There are people who buy iphones and stuff. They pay A LOT MORE than 300. And then, they buy a new phone after a year or two... Its a fact. I'm not wasting my money on wannabe gimmick iphones if regular phone is able to satisfy my needs. I dont either waste my money on cigarettes or random useles cool stuff.

 

[Avex]

Lets see, over all I've spent, 40$ for Vanilla, 40$ for TBC, 60$ for WotLK..

Then about 120$ for Subscriptions, then I quit.

 

[andreasaspenberg]

what is vanilla? if playing on blizzards servers had been free, then i would most likely have leveled up all of my characters to maximum. there is plenty of massive multiplayer online role-playing games that is free. perhaps blizzard should make the game free but add more paid services.(like buying gold.)

 

[Evillizard]

It would be awesome. Blizzard wouldn't make any money with WoW, and forget that ***** game,
and make WC IV!!!!!!

Ya, except for, if it was free, they would probably focus on Diablo or Starcraft or start something new instead of continueing warcraft. It would bring in much more money.

 

[LumZor]

Well if Blizzard would not get Paid for wow i think they should think it is pointless to update the game with new patches i mean some of them maybe dont care about the game so much i heard that blizzard hired people who did'nt have Jobs for a while ago. But yes i think there is more people who works for Blizzard who love there Jobs Ofc.

 

[Dr Super Good]

WoW can not exist without a montly fee. It would have to source revenue from ingame assets (what they do now is hardly that) which would render it pointless to play unless you are willing to pay. Most of us know how free games try and make the paying people rigged.

On top of that it would receive no maintence and as such it would quickly fall to the dogs.

WoW only works because it demands a monthly fee. Everyone in WoW is pretty equal, yes people may have insane mounts and crap but they certainly will not have a person OHKOing you cause he paid 300$ for cheat codes. As everyone pays, there is no reason to greatly reward people willing to pay more.

WoW will eventually become free (blizzard atleast has hinted). As it enters retirement and the servers become deserted, they may change it so you can play for free and rely on the usual bonus content to keep their servers up and running (as they will no longer look for profit from it).

 

[Tyranid]

WoW can not exist without a montly fee. It would have to source revenue from ingame assets (what they do now is hardly that) which would render it pointless to play unless you are willing to pay. Most of us know how free games try and make the paying people rigged.

On top of that it would receive no maintence and as such it would quickly fall to the dogs.

WoW only works because it demands a monthly fee. Everyone in WoW is pretty equal, yes people may have insane mounts and crap but they certainly will not have a person OHKOing you cause he paid 300$ for cheat codes. As everyone pays, there is no reason to greatly reward people willing to pay more.

WoW will eventually become free (blizzard atleast has hinted). As it enters retirement and the servers become deserted, they may change it so you can play for free and rely on the usual bonus content to keep their servers up and running (as they will no longer look for profit from it).

Guild Wars survived pretty well with constant updates and hotfixes without a monthly fee. It survived on expansion packs and to a lesser extend on a shop which sold stuff like character slots, weapon packs (balanced weapons with the same stats as every other weapon), skill packs (unlocked all skills for your PvP characters) and stuff like that. It wasn't anything overpowered and not anything you couldn't achieve by playing normally.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Guildwars was never nowhere as big as WoW.

 

[Tyranid]

Guildwars was never nowhere as big as WoW.

...And how does that back up your argument?

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

adding buyable content into the game like mounts, vanity stuff, etc.

So what's better, a few dumb people buying vanity stuff paying for the servers or everyone who wants to play paying for the servers?

I'd probably at least give the game a try if it was free, but really I don't see much of a point of buying the same game multiple times - I prefer the "you paid for the game, now you can play it as you please" system that's worked for a while, granted keeping up servers demands some form of revenue to keep it going and I understand that - I myself just don't see much of a purpose of paying to constantly play a game when there's many other games that I can get just as much enjoyment from that don't require constant payment, or in some cases are completely free.

In-game advertisement could work to support servers, and has worked for some games already, but of course the extent of that and how intrusive it gets is definitely important - no one wants advertising to get in the way of their activities, and constant in your face advertisements would be more annoying then their worth.

Vanity stuff/buyable content is pretty much the same imo, I don't mind it as long as it's not intrusive and doesn't create some form of unfair advantage - I don't care if someone else can get a special colored robe as long as I can still fairly kick their ass.

 

[andreasaspenberg]

there is free trials. players that have been gone for a while is also invited to play for 7 days for free. i also believe that the test realms are free to use.(at least they were before.) that means that world of warcraft is partially free. though it still costs to play if it is done often.

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

WoW is the type of game that takes you more then a week to "beat" if you've never been through it before - being a trial, the whole point is to get you wanting more, and thus constantly paying for more time.

 

[Super-Sheep]

Why people qq about the payments.

I have never bought 12 euro game and played it for 1 month.

But now I had to cancel my subscription because Blizzard is so going to mess up the PvP in the game...

 

[Dr Super Good]

I love how people refer to change as mess.
If you are atleast going to criticise them, state why...

 

[greasontim]

the trail caps out at like 10 or 20 gold and at lvl 20 so really not worth even using. Only reason I know this is cause my cousin capped out one of his characters in a day.
For now I just play on the Public Test Realms, sure they restart them and get rid of everything on them every few months but its still something to do when I get bored till I get the money to play on a normal server.

But if it were free I would be playing it right now, and all day seeing how my aunt is sick and she doesn't want the computer at all when she is sick.

 

[Skycraft]

If it was free I still wouldn't be playing it, Super Mario Galaxy is way more fun.
So is Metroid Prime.
and Brawl.
And Mario Kart.
and Starcraft.
and Warcraft 3.
and various other games.

World of Warcraft is just one of those games where you can't play by yourself - like Call of Duty, you need friends or there really is not point playing it. And I lack friends.

 

[andreasaspenberg]

it is possible to complete the lower level dungeons alone at higher levels. if people invite friends that then buy the full version they get a free month for it. therefore there is ways to play world of warcraft for free.

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

You'd need an infinite source of friends willing to join the game at month intervals (and willing to pay even though they're supporting you riding for free). Not exactly realistic

 

[Goffterdom]

If WoW was free and not so commercial it'd be good.
1. Warcraft lore wouldn't have been so much fucked up
2. Warcraft 3 would have benefited more attention
3. Warcraft 4 wouldn't have been a dream
4. WoW would be played by 99% of the geek population

I dont play WoW, I hate WoW because of the background implications, so maybe I wouldnt have played it anyway.

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

"Not so commercial"

What do you even mean by this?
Sure, there's a subscription cost but aside from that WoW has actually striked me as one of the less commercial mmo's, it's not like you can buy your way to max level, or they've put in huge segments of the game, aside from expansions, that you can only enter via payment, or anything like that.

 

[andreasaspenberg]

world of warcraft have appeared a lot in media. it is the mmo rgp i have seen in media the most. there is however a way to play it for free all of the time. though if i told you i would get punished.

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

We already know what you're talking about, and from what I've heard most of those methods aren't populated with many players, being an MMO - without the social aspect it really removes a lot of the fun out of it

 

[andreasaspenberg]

some are rather populated.

 

[Adiktuz]

if WoW was free, more people will come at start, but the seasoned players will soon start to disappear as WoW would probably fall down due to lack of funds...

 

[Dr. House]

It prolly would be the same as WarcraftIII a few years of succes and than it drops. They should atleast add a member system or something than to earn the money to pay server costs and so on. As for now if you think about the fact more than 10 million people play wow and they all pay 12 dollars a month to play it (12 euros in my country) and you do 12 x 10 million x 12 you get the amount of money they earn a year which is 1440000000 dollars a year. and thats just with 10 million players.

 

[DEAD FiSH]

It would be good (for players)

Players would be happy, but Blizzard makes money on monthly payment so that allows them to collect money for other projects like D3 an SC2.
WOW has many users in the whole world and to some people it is important as much as Facebook.
What would make me really happy is new Warcraft (not another WOW expanison).
Honestly I don`t like WOW much I more prefer to the old school RPGs.