[Dragon-Dancer]

Second Life makes their money by selling in game currency (Linden dollars) and in game land to build on. Other than developing the Sl engine and managing accounts and servers the entire world is player run and player constructed. Players can even make in game currency by selling copies of their creations. In other words there isn't really much in common with WoW, which is entirely developer built and means a whole lot more man hours of labor.

MMOs have a variety of models these days, sometimes I wonder how a lot of the free to play ones even survive but they seem to do alright. I've been playing MMOs for many years now. Started with Asheron's Call and moves on to City of Heroes, LotR, DDO, WoW and a few others along the way. I was skeptical of the monthly fee at first too but really I'm not paying much more then than I am now. Before I was buying a new game every few weeks since I'd gotten bored with/finished the ones I had before. Now I pay a monthly fee and play the game to death for months or years, in the end it comes out the same. The only difference is that I play less variety but the social aspect has been a decent tradeoff.

Currently I'm back to playing DDO again, quite enjoying how the game has changed since I was last in game.

[bootlegga]

WOW was never my thing, I stopped playing D&D in junior high school. Even an awesome sci-fi one probably couldn't convince me to pay a monthly fee to play.

I understand the need to such fees due to maintenance costs, but I refuse to buy a game and then pay monthly fees on top of it to use the software.

I'll stick to FPS and RTS games that don't have fees, thank you very much.

[Scape]

Praxius Praxius:

Well as I said, I'm no expert on the whole MMORPG or whathaveyou games.... from looking outside-in, it seemed to run along the same basis as Second Life (Which I only tried for maybe half an hour, once, and then uninstalled it)

Guild wars would be a better example. 2nd life is free and relies on in game purchases to support the game whereas Guildwars is a more traditional one time purchase with unlimited access after. You can buy extra items for money but they are not game breaking. World of tanks also is a free to play game that you can buy equipment and tanks but they do alter the game and you can become a wallet warrior.

With each of these games it comes down to the user base and community. Some people will pay a premium in order to be a part of that. You can do a little of that in games like 1st person shooters that are team based but they are not the same sort of experience as a world with ongoing conflict and shifting battle lines and alliances.

Guildwars was also made by the same people who started WOW and split when they charged the monthly fee. It was a choice WOW made in order to create a much larger world and content with a much shorter development cycle to support a much larger user base. Guild wars does rival WOW in content but WOW comes out with more, faster and on a more consistent basis and delivers it to a much larger player base.

[Praxius]

bootlegga bootlegga:

WOW was never my thing, I stopped playing D&D in junior high school. Even an awesome sci-fi one probably couldn't convince me to pay a monthly fee to play.

I understand the need to such fees due to maintenance costs, but I refuse to buy a game and then pay monthly fees on top of it to use the software.

I'll stick to FPS and RTS games that don't have fees, thank you very much.

Here Here!

...... or is it Hear Hear?

Either way, I concur.

[Scape]

SWG set to close Dec 15

That being said the pre-cu private servers are now going though a rebirth:

Galaxies Reborn

[PostFactum]

If I was playing it I would be happy, maybe