Atary77

@stinky: Here's my question, why did this have to be live action to begin with? In my opinion this should've been a CGI animated film all together. It seems like it's more of a hassle trying to render CGI mixed with live action as opposed to just making it CGI entirely.

I really don't like the live action Transformers flicks. I know there are some that would tell me "It's been years, get over it". Well I'm not over it. They sucked when they came out and they still suck now! I'm not going to go into rant mode as to why they're such a chore to watch but I do want to bring up one of the things producers kept saying to fans when the first film was in production. The makers of the film wanted to focus on the human characters because they felt new comers to the series wouldn't understand what the Transformers were and that they would be confused if the movie started with robots talking to robots. I can't help but feel that's just a lazy argument made by producers and marketing morons who think that movie goers are all idiots.

The whole idea that unless you show something people are already familiar with ,they won't get it. There are countless sci-fi movies that open up with all kinds of ideas, places, and characters that aren't familiar to us and they seem to catch on pretty damn well. For example look at Star Wars, when that first movie opens up what do you see? One ship being chased by one big ass ship while they shoot at each other! We don't know that they're called yet or why they're fighting but it's not long till we do find out because it was well made. Next thing ya see, well it's a robot... talking to a smaller robot. Wait there's robots in this that talk? Holy shit my mind can't comprehend this! Least that's what today's movie makers would think. Next thing ya see, Some dudes in helmets with guns waiting for some kind of threat to blast through that door they're all worried about. And sure enough that threat does show up and, what?! Guys in white armor? Why are they wearing that armor? Why are they all shooting each other? And who's this guy in a dark black suit breathing heavy? I don't know who he is but I'm sure he must be a bad guy!

You see what I'm getting at here? Star Wars a movie that was pretty much founded on concepts we've never heard of before became one of the greatest and most recognized things of all time. That you can start a movie with all kinds of strange and unknown things and not treat your audience like they're idiots! Before Star Wars we didn't know what a Jedi ,or the Force, or why anyone would use a sword made out of light but it sure did a good job of introducing us to them. Getting back to Transformers I think it would've been entirely possible to start the movie on Cybertron and focusing on the robots. We all knew what a robot was in 2007 so there's something we could already understand and as the movie would go (if written properly) could've introduced us to all these characters and concepts.

And with these games having such a great story, world, and characters I just can't help but think that THESE stories should've been our movies. Not the shit fest that was Shia LeBouf's quest to get laid in explosion land.

What are your thoughts?

In light of the recent news regarding Star Wars The Old Republic I think it's fair to say yeah you can justify a monthly subscription.... just good luck supporting it =/

Dammit I can't help but laugh at this.

@ajamafalous: That honestly would get me to try other subscription games if they only charged that much. I know some would argue that's close to what you would pay if you got an annual subscription rather than a monthly sub. But still a good idea.

@Dagbiker: To jump a little off topic, WoW was one of the first real MMO games I was able to play mostly cause I was an adult with a stable job and steady income as opposed to my younger and more vulnerable years back in the 90's when I was in my teens and didn't really work that much. Not to mention the only computer we had in the house at the time could really only play stuff like Doom II and even then I needed a boot disk. Remember those things?

The last time I had a dream about a game was one night after put in a few hours into Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. I can still remember swinging around the city in first person and how much of a rush it felt. Damn I wish I could have more dreams like that.

@CL60 said:

I prefer P2P honestly. $15 a month isn't that difficult for me to pay, and I would rather just do that than have a cash shop.(Knowing me I would probably spend far more than 15 bucks a month in a cash shop.)

Indeed you probably would spend more in some cash shops that a lot of F2P games use. I know I spent forty dollars on DCUO for a few of the expansion packs that it put out and if something else peaks my interest I may throw down the cash for it. There are a lot of folks who may go on a shopping spree in those shops and as a result the game manages to pull in a good sized profit.

Back in the 90's the idea of playing an online game with just 4 to 8 players seemed like a wonder. So when a game comes along that pretty much lets you play with the entire world, it blew our freaking minds back then. There was Ultima Online, Everquest, and soon many other games would come and follow in their footsteps. And of course World of Warcraft came along, and then took everyone's money basically and is still a juggernaut to this day. However as times have changed so has the technology to allow people to play online. Course when you're creating an entire virtual world for people to inhabit that needs to stay consistent, you have to have a server to run all that and so players need to pay a subscription fee so that Blizzard or whoever else can keep that world going.

However in recent years many MMO games have moved away from this business model and instead go free to play allowing players to buy the game once, if at all and play the game without a fee. But they still need money to keep servers running right? Of course they do! That's why they will sell you all kinds of costumes, weapons, XP bonus packs, etc. in order to bring in revenue. The best part of all is that it really does work. Sony has found a good amount of success using a F2P model with Free Realms and DC Universe Online as well as Perfect World with a very large variety of games that they maintain.

Of course there are still a good number of companies who still want a subscription out of it's player base because they simply think they're worth it... or they just want to make as much money as WoW does which is usually the case. But as many companies have learned it's not easy chasing that WoW dollar. Players in this day and age still find the barrier of entry rather high simply because they have to pay a monthly fee ,especially when that's money that could maybe be used on their TV service, Internet Provider ,or other things that may be more important than just a game that is as much a time investment as it is a money investment.

But when a game is free you'd defiantly check it out wouldn't you? I know I certainly have. I even went back to Star Trek Online myself after it switched to a F2P model. Based on what I've heard lately the game is doing better now than it ever did on a subscription. The same success can be said about DCUO who saw it's numbers sky rocket after it became a free game and is doing pretty well based on various websites I've read.

Still there are good number of games like WoW, Star Wars the Old Republic, EVE Online, Secret World, Rift, and many others that still use the subscription model of business. WoW still maintains a good sized audience to justify it's subscription and doesn't need to resort to giving that up just yet, however there have been numerous stories of people abandoning SWTOR as the game may have failed to keep their interest. But it begs the question of if all these games and if ANY MMO game that comes along can justify charging a subscription anymore?

One thing that comes to mind is how some folks like EA would consider going F2P something of a failure at least that's the impression I get from them whenever it's brought up by the various journalist of the web. But that's so far from the truth! Going F2P isn't a failure state, it's just a sign that the business has changed and if you want your game to continue you're going to have to change with it. Another thing that comes to mind and something that's been mentioned during the GiantBombcast here is that the novelty of an MMO was playing with large numbers of other people and interacting with them in a persistent world. However in order to remedy certain problems such as waiting in a line to fight a boss, developers had to section off levels, dungeons, what have you in an "instance" taking you out of the world and putting you and your group in another area. Guild Wars built it's entire game around this idea and they don't even need a monthly subscription.

With so many more games building their worlds around instances it feels like it may not even be necessary to charge a subscription, at least that's the impression that I've gotten. But what do you people think? Has the technology gotten to the point where a MMO game doesn't need a subscription anymore? Are publishers pulling our legs? Or is it still the much needed necessary evil?

1. Mega Man X (SNES)

2. Mortal Kombat (360)

3. Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando (PS2)