Subscriptions or Not

[Astralporing.1957]

@"TinkTinkPOOF.9201" said:FF14 had ungodly critical reviews at release and the user base went mad, so bad that they "suspend subscription fees, indefinitely postponed the PlayStation 3 version, and replaced the development team leadership"That was 1.0, which was ultimately cancelled. A Realm Reborn (2.0) is basically a completely new game (And a much better one).But yeah, having a sub is no guarantee of the game being good.

In the end, both systems have their good sides and bad sides, and it's up to player preferences which version would be better. It's only when you try to mix them up, (subscription with a heavy cash shop, or the so called "optional subscriptions"/"premium membership" systems), or go too greedy on the cash shop (like the "freemium" games that are designed specifically to make the game annoying or flat out unplayable without cash shop purchases) that the things are certain to go very, very bad.

Unfortunately, it's the cashshop-based games that are more likely to go that route eventually, as subscriptions are mainly about player retention, but cashshop income tends to favour high turnover rates way, way more than that.

Still, asking for a sub in GW2 context is meaningless. I know of no case of a game that succesfully transitioned from a b2p to a sub system - if such a transition happens, it usually happens in the opposite direction. And i wouldn't expect any good results in GW2 case either. Not only the players in here are already way too used to not having to pay for sub, but also any such transition would really have to accompany a massive game transformation and improvement - something that would go way beyond just a new expansion. There's no way Anet would be able to get away with it otherwise. And seriously, at this point i just don't see that happening.