I like MMOs. That should be obvious. 90% or more of my gaming is based around the MMO market. I don’t own a PS3, XBox 360, or a Wii (okay, not entirely because I don’t want any of them, but that makes up at least a bit of the reason). I own a computer. In fact, in my house there are a few computers. I’ve never invested money into a gaming computer, partially for lack of money of course, but also partially because I’d never seen a need. I’m not the type of person that has to play at the “best” settings in a game. I don’t like playing a game on the low end settings, but if I’m somewhere near the recommended settings for a game, or at least closer to the recommended than to the minimum, I’m okay with working with the computer I have.
So far this has said nothing, but I’m getting to the point, and there is one. I am like most people that play MMOs, or computer games of any kind for that matter. I don’t have the best computer, but it’s not junk either and I’m relatively happy with it just like anyone else.
There is of course a group of “hardcore” people who will say things like it’s my fault I don’t have a gaming computer, or I’m not hardcore enough to have one, whatever. They can blow it out their ass, I don’t care what they say. I am the majority. I have a limited income, if I want to buy something, and by that I mean something of a decent investment, it takes me time to save up, especially when we are talking about an investment of say…$2000 or more.
Now, all that being said, what is the point? Here we go:
Tabula Rasa angers me. It angers me on so many levels that it is hard to describe. NCSoft, in all their brilliance, has decided to bitch-slap the average consumer. Effectively they’ve said to me, and people like me that if we want to play this game it’s going to cost us no less than $2050 upfront. That’s not even talking about the monthly fee to play, probably another $15 or so.
On the whole I’m even okay with monthly fees of $15 or around there. I don’t complain about them. I’m not the guy on game forums talking about how X company made “$900 billion” in profits based on their monthly fees and they owe me A, B and C. However, for that $15 a month I do expect the game to be good. Pretty damn good in fact. It has to be better than any console or single player game available, bar none.
If you don’t think this is the case take a simple lesson in business right here on this gaming blog. Here it is, your free one sentence lesson:
If I pay for shit repeatedly it needs to be good.
Here’s the answer to the question you may already be asking, why?
Because it’s not a one time payment. I have to be getting at least 3.5 times more enjoyment from the game than any other game I pay a one time fee for (12 x 15 = 180, average cost of a game is, say ~$50, so ~3.5).
Now I have to apply this to Tabula Rasa, is the game actually going to be worth $2200 for my first year? If they want it to sell it better be.
A quick side note so everyone is on the same page here, the recommended specs for TR have been posted as a 3.5 GHz processor, 2GB RAM and a pretty nice video card.
The minimum, by the way are 2.5 GHz processor and 512MB RAM and a 128MB video card.
Like most people I don’t want to play the “lo-fi” version of the game with the minimum specs. That’s not what I pay $180 a year for. If NCSoft, or anyone else believes it is they need to re-think their marketing.
Compare that to the leading MMO on the market, World of Warcraft. What are the recommended specs there:
1.5 GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 64MB video card.
HOLY ECONOMICS BATMAN, THAT’S NO LESS THAN HALF!
Yep. By the way, World of Warcraft just passed 8 million subscribers. They did this by luck. You see, World of Warcraft isn’t good because the average consumer can pick it up and run it on their computer, thus making it readily available to anyone who is even mildly interested, oh no, it’s pure luck.
If you can’t stand the bullshit I just spewed there you may not be wasting oxygen.
The argument comes up that I am obviously exaggerating about the $2000 price tag that is needed for a computer. Which could be true. Let’s assume your computer is running a 2.8-3.0 GHz processor, good enough that it doesn’t need an upgrade, though not quite optimal. We can live with that. Now let’s assume your computer has between 512MB and 1GB of RAM. For the sake of the example I’ll shoot high and we’ll call it the 1GB. That’s a problem. Half the recommended isn’t going to cut it. Anyone who knows about playing games and how much RAM you need can vouch for that. You really don’t want to pull less than the recommended, it just makes for a bad play experience.
So, you now have to invest in 1GB of RAM, at least. Remember, you are the average consumer and probably not all to interested in figuring out how to install the RAM yourself (P.S. if you don’t already know, look it up on Google, a monkey could install RAM) so you are probably going to go to someplace like Best Buy, get the RAM and get ripped off by having them install it for you (it’s amazing that they can charge $40 for no more than 3 minutes of work, that means they are making about $800 an hour, but that’s a rant best left for another time). This will run you about $200 dollars. I’ll even be nice and assume the video card you, as the average guy has is good enough to play the game, which is probably a laughable assumption but I’ll keep costs down where I can.
That means this game is still an investment of over $400 dollars in my first year, and $180 every year thereafter.
They try to make it sound good. It’s just the typical cost of the MMO, $50 for the box/account key and then $15 a month. They don’t tell you to play the game at it’s best you’ll be selling your children to an Asian country where they will be paid in grains of rice and worked for 25 hour shifts, each day (and if for some reason they can’t make the extra hour that doesn’t exist they will not get their rice).
I’m sorry, but this annoys me. I want to play Tabula Rasa, I pre-ordered a copy already, not even knowing when the game would be coming out, just in expectation of it coming out eventually. I’m not saying I’m the game’s #1 fan, but I’m certainly up there among the group of people eagerly awaiting this game’s arrival.
I understand the desire to make the game look and play as good as is possible. That desire to push the envelope in development is a great thing, the game should look good. WoW looks good. It’s not the best looking game on the market, but no one is calling it ugly by any means. Why is there a belief that to get people to play it has to look better than everything else on the market? When was looking good not good enough? To be perfectly honest I don’t care about rendering the stubble on the merchants face or that each snowflake that falls is designed to never be the exact same shape twice. Is the game not a pixelated mess? Good enough for me.
I’ve gone on too long already about this though. Maybe I’m crazy here, does anyone else find the cost of playing the game a bit over the top?
Tabula Rasa, NCSoft, world of warcraft, supercomputers, system specs
The PlayNC website has announced that the referral program for Dungeon Runners is open again. I haven’t talked too much about Dungeon Runners relating to how good/bad it is except for a few tidbits here and there but I would encourage everyone to give it a try. It has a certain simple and fun charm to it that can be quite addicting. If anyone wants an invite, I can send them out, but I’ll need an e-mail address to send them to, so use the contact feature on the right or leave a comment with your e-mail address and I’ll send them out.
Well, I let this one get away over the weekend, I don’t know how, but I missed it. Apparently the FBI gave 
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