Out of Pod Experience

Yes it's a bold deal for gamers. Well that's if you're interested in playing their games.

$15 All Access Plan Could Save the Subscription MMO

This is not a bad idea. A company like SOE can afford to do this, esp with a lot of properties.

A company like CCP might have a harder time, if they had you know, another mmo. But tis not a bad deal.

Sounds like a pretty good idea actually.

Wait, wut? Is this article from 2004? Man, usually Forbes is on the ball, but this is a 2014 article
I had that for years, paid a flat rate for all access station pass. Played EQ, EQ2, SWG, Planetside, and some other games. Was like $22/mo, did it for years up until SWG released that game killing NGE patch. The only difference here is they lowered the price a little and made the all access pass compulsory for all accounts. The thing is, they still make a killing with expansion costs. The more games you play, even if a few bucks less, you will feel compelled to buy even more expansions to keep up with everyone else in those games. Not even mentioning all the RMT micro-transactions they have worked into their games over the years. This is just marketing spin on what they have done for years, Forbes fell for it as it's something amazingly new. SOE: Where games go to die...

I'll edit in here though: yes it's a good idea, well from 10 years ago But still a good idea. But imo, their games aren't worth it really... I don't think I'd even pay $5 to play their games. Maybe EQ1 if they put up a Pre-PoP rollback server, or no further than PoP (like the Mac server was), but true to that and not like their stupid progression servers that have all the latest features included. No progressions, just stuck in time when the game was actually challenging. But all their games are like that now, just easy and hand-holding no challenging fun at all. I have no problems at all with the subscription system, it's just that they need to be connected to actual good games and not all this modern casual gaming garbage that isn't even worth my time if free.

F2P games are made to be annoying to coax you into paying and not just because of xp/cash limits but also through gameplay, why would I want to play a game that's annoying on purpose?
F2P games you actually enjoy enough to invest into generally end up costing you more
F2P games have a higher percentage of morons, trolls and retards which you'll have to group with

I'll happily pay a sub for a solid and good game and in fact I'd be happy to pay more per month if that means better quality game and service while it'll have less morons and 12 yearolds.

"lowering the price".

10+ years ago monthly sub for most MMO's was ~15 euro, today it's STILL ~15 euro and since this little thing called inflation exists I'd say it's pretty much fcking cheap.

Since you're so hung up about the subject you're obviously poor because per usual the "nono, I do this for the good of the [insert whatever cause]" pretty much translates to "I need this done for myself"; Here's an idea.

You stick to F2P terrible crap games that force you to grind and be annoying in the process, just to get you to pay. And because I (and millions of others) am not poor and can do some simple maths about cost per hour of entertainment I'll stick to sub games that aren't terrible while (this is part of the point) I won't have to run into terrible morons as much.

I think that's a great deal.

The entire concept of the all access subscription is pretty interesting. I'm really curious to see how that turns out in the end. To bad Europeans get shafted here because in the EU ProSiebenSat1 Media runs all SOE stuff and they said "nope! not gonna do/allow that here"

"Old school? You mean 'doing it right.'" -- Lt. Van Buren

That's not accurate. And still doesn't negate the fact that there were free mmo's 10 years ago, that was not accurate as well.

As for your WoW response, again it doesn't actually address what I said. It's a simple fact that WoW started out as a EQ2 clone, their success in numbers were from marketing and their existing army of Blizzard fanbois; snowball effect. imo it was a horrible blow to the mmo genre. Especially/mostly post vanilla. And a lot of these garbage f2p attempts are targeted at the bored WoW fanbois as the expansions don't roll out fast enough for the grindy progression themepark model.