EA putting micro-transactions "into all of our games"

^QFT yep...I, for one, can be counted upon to buy every single version of CIV plus expansions, maps etc. even though they aren't all anything like home runs ( I loathed CIV 3 for example). This goes back to launch of orginal CIV in all it's 8 bit glory...I just find it engaging in a way that other games generally aren't.

It is moving me right out the door. I am sure there are others that feel as I do. It is my hope that they will all be vocal enough to be heared. Microtransactions lead to the further dumbing down of games and Pay 2 Win. Boiling the Frog.

I don't disagree with you. It's just my contention that every MMO made since WoW has tried to emulate it and none of them have come anywhere close to matching its numbers.

I don't think there are two types of MMO gamer out there, I think that developers think there is only one... the WoW player. When every option we have is either WoW, or a blatant clone of it, they have created a black and white market. You either play what they think you want, or you don't play at all because there really are no alternatives among new games.

The difference between a game like CIV and MMO is that in CIV you can always just cheat to win or play at really easy levels. Its completely up to the player to decide how hard they want to make the game. In CIv4 if you never want to use the slavery/whip rush you dont have to, you can play a low level where that is unnecessary. In Civ5 if you mess up or the game is going against you, you just load from a previous save or give yourself more units.

I personally dont enjoy those things, but many people just want to win. They dont care about the challenge.

Interestingly enough I quit playing Civ5 for Swtor. I tend to burn out on Civ games eventually as well.

But (imo) the majority of people who buy video games, buy them so that they can win. They do not buy them so that they can be challenged and maybe not finish the game. That went away back in the Nintendo days. Video games in general have been progressively made easier/less difficult. And I see no reason why MMOs wont follow the same path. In the late 90s/early 00s the younger player base was comprised of players who grew up on games that were annoying/difficult, where you couldnt just save on a whim. Its now 2010, some players today have never even played a game where you couldnt save/restart/reload at any moment.

hehe me to!
13th of March!

This is the mentality that I can't and will never be able to understand. If you "cheat" it's not winning and seeing as it's single player the only person who's being cheated is yourself. In Civ for example I want it to be hard enough to challenge me but still "winnable". Too easy completely destroys any enjoyment at all. Also, even then it's not really about "winning" it's about playing and struggling.
In mmos it's always about the levellling experience for me as well testing myself against other players <read pvp>. Again, it's not about "winning"...it's about striving...
In fact, one of the things that first attracted me to mmos in the early days was the fqact that you never "won" but constantly played to improve yourself and/or your character...not to mention they just plain fun.
I dunno....maybe it's just me, but I really can't wrap my head around the worldview you're talking about...just don't get it at all.

Your experiences are the exact opposite of the PC gamers I know. All of them love challenge and crank difficulties as high as they can while still having a hope of winning.

PC gamers and video gamers are different beasts. PC gamers want to be challenged, video gamers want to be entertained by flashing lights. This is why difficulty-enhancing mods are very popular in games like Fallout on the PC, while cheat codes are popular with the people who play it on consoles.

MMO's are made for console gamers now, and console gamers loathe subscriptions. They also generally don't own or use PC's for gaming, so it's no wonder the games made for them on PC's tank so badly.

Microtransactions are great, if they're built into the game at he outset as a hybrid model for a MMO, it's not so good when you are "forced" to go to this model to keep from going under.

Ok...CosmicKat understands....see above ^ Never thought of it that way...pretty insightful..only knew I loathe consoles even though my first gaming <non board or pnp> was pong-> atari 26oo etc. up the chain stopping when the commodre 64 (actually that was the 2nd I had...vic-20 was my first) came out and I got my first PC. Have loathed consoles ever since.

I saw quite a few online games go down the drain for the pay to win system, which TOR hasn't been affected yet.

The money updates, which were not an aestethic feature, but a must for survival and to " keep up with the top dogs " , gradually knocked down the spender, and in one of those games I know people of spending and admitting of spending £75 weekly, during which there was this " special hour " in which people would get triple the cash special resource than normal. while there are few addicts ( cause that's what you call a person who is unable to let go of something, even if it's hurting him/her) left, game's left by those people and an ever rising amount of botters and cheaters.

If the cartel market starts to take that turn the cheaters, either for protest or because they don't got cash but still want to keep up, will start rising a lot, and subscribers will go.

And that's how you kill MMOs with maximum profit.

1)Force in the game new updates necessary for bare survival at the cost of the ( expendable because they don't spend ) freebies.
2)Thin out the player base by adding more and more money updates.
3)Milk the addict till the last dime.
4)Realize that the last of your addicted customers have left the building due to cheaters or have caved in to cheating themselves, or maybe they've snapped out of your spending spell.
5) because of no income, it is ground for game shutdown

Luckily enough for me I won't be seeing this in TOR since even at the first, slightest sign of it, I'm out.