Massively^™

Ladies and gentlemen (both of you) and all the rest of you hooligans out there, it is time, once again, to probe into the mind of the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-too-willing-to-make-it-up -as-he-goes-along Swami of MMO arcana in this week's "Ask Massively." In this column, you will not find the words "World of Warcraft" or "Second Life" outside of the confines of this paragraph. By the way, to those of you, and there were many, who asked "Why does Massively talk about Second Life so much when it isn't an MMO?" I have three words for you: Twelve million users. Any game that has so many accounts attached to it, whether or not it fits the standard mold of an MMO, qualifies as "Massive" and I daresay that there is more roleplaying going on in SL than there is in WoW.

Now that we have that out of the way, I promise that there will be no further mention of those games after the jump.

As always, if you would like to have your question answered for all the online world to see, feel free to post a comment at the end of this article, or stop by our tipline and let us know what's on your mind.

Our first question comes from Sevenwind, who writes

Oh great one... Do you think if Turbine offered an all games pass like Sony's Station Pass it would be a good deal and attract new players to all of their games?

We can learn a couple of things from Sevenwind's question. The first is that flattery is, by far, the easiest way to have your question included in "Ask Massively". The second is that, contrary to popular belief, game companies do listen to their fans. In an interview with Massively last year, NCSoft's Starr Long is asked a similar question and answers "That's a brilliant idea..." From a purely economic standpoint, using a multi-game pass to allow players to try out your company's other games without having to worry about additional subscriptions makes a lot of sense.

Put another way, sometimes players will experience burnout on a game and cancel their subscriptions until the urge to play is found once again. If a player can take a break from Dungeons and Dragons Online and spend some time playing Lord of the Rings Online then the company can maintain their revenue stream and the player gets value for their subscription.

Obviously, this is most effective for companies that have multiple titles in their portfolio. Turbine has DDO, LotRO, and Asheron's Call. However a company like NCSoft would have a lot more to offer their players. If you had the opportunity to pay one monthly fee to play City of Heroes, City of Villains, Lineage, Lineage II, Aion, Dungeon Runners, Guild Wars, and Tabula Rasa, wouldn't you be more inclined to give those games a chance? CoH might not be your thing, but you can always try Tabula Rasa out without having to worry about starting another subscription. (Note: In this particular example, some games like Guild Wars or Dungeon Runners do not have a monthly subscription fee. I include them in order to show the large number of games that some companies have in their portfolios.)

Another advantage that these companies would have in the marketplace is that NCSoft could compete against games like a certain well-known MMO with 10 million subscribers by offering many games for the price of one. No matter how many expansions a game has, at the end of the day, it's still the same game. Offering players a chance to jump into entirely new virtual worlds without having to juggle multiple subscriptions is a convenience that many people would pay a small premium for. Would you like to play one game for 15 dollars per month? or 5 games for 25 dollars per month? Considering that the player who pays for multiple games is more likely to keep his subscription active, the "5 for 25" model makes more sense in the long run.

My good friend, Mark C , writes:

Dear God of all things MMO,

Why do developers hate my class?

Well, Mark, they don't necessarily hate your class. They hate you. Personally. They hate you with the kind of soul-searing venom reserved for puppy kickers and Battleground AFK'ers. If you changed classes tomorrow, they'd buff your old class, and nerf your new one just to spite you. In fact, I've received a few million petitions from "those Battle.Net kiddies" for me to ask you to consider switching to a Warlock in the near future.

In fact, I recently received a note from EA/Mythic and Funcom, producers of Warhammer Online and Age of Conan, respectively, letting me know that they are considering buying you some game cards for the "1,000 pound gorilla of MMOs" so that you would have enough time to play a character of every class in the hopes that Blizzard would nerf everyone into oblivion and drive those players to try their games instead. They have already taken measures to prevent you from creating accounts for their games because they wanted to avoid the rush at launch time and start hating you right now.

If you wish to avoid the hassle of having game developers nerf every class that you play, might I suggest EVE Online? EVE is the perfect game for you, because like you, they have no class(es). Of course every ship you fly in EVE will have a large "I Brake for ISK Farmers" decal on one side, and a large bullseye on the other. In anticipation of your arrival in EVE, CCP has added an upgrade to the "Mark V Targeting Computer" called the "Mark C Targeting Computer". Any ship equipped with this item cannot miss and will have a damage multiplier corresponding to the number of "BoB Cheats" threads on the CCP forums. Unfortunately, it is only effective against whatever ship that you happen to be flying.

But don't worry... *I* still like you.

That's all we have for this week, folks. Once again, if you would like to have your question answered for all the online world to see, feel free to post a comment down below, or stop by our tipline and let us know what's on your mind.