Massively columnist Larry Everett has informed me that despite having sent in a different response for this week's WRUP, he will spend this weekend staring at chest hair. Why will he be staring at chest hair? I don't know, exactly. Perhaps he's captured by the primal energy it offers, the sense of a fundamental connection with mankind's somewhat savage roots. Perhaps he just really doesn't feel like logging into a runescape. Whatever the reason, he dared me to share this with the world, and now I'm doing precisely that.
Where were we? Oh, right, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. This week's edition is... well, like every other edition, with the Massively staffers letting you all know what they'll be up to over the weekend. We're also talking about the maximum fee we'd pay for a subscription to an MMO. So jump on past the break to check out our runescape plans, then let us know yours down in the comments!
I'm going to have to get some time in with Ryzom this weekend, hopefully a bit less scattered than last week. Otherwise, I'll be haunting Star Wars: The Old Republic and Final Fantasy [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] as scheduling permits.
Honestly, I'd rather subscribe to two or three different runescapes at once than subscribe to a single runescape at the same price. For $15 a month, I expect a runescape to know what it does well and focus on that. At $45 a month, it needs to basically be doing the job of three different runescapes -- to use an offline example, it would be like asking a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] runescape to provide me equal shares of Tetris, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], and Split/Second. I'm willing to pay $60 a month on subscription fees, but I don't expect one runescape to provide everything under one roof, and so I tend toward spreading my time.
I've returned to EVE Online (for the sixth or seventh time; maybe [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]), and I'm also dabbling in Fallen Earth, PlanetSide, and EverQuest II.
I'd pay upwards of $75 a month for a quality MMORPG that isn't a feature-deficient DIKU retread. People look at me funny when I say that, but compared to many other hobbies, that's pocket change for what amounts to unlimited entertainment. Try playing a couple of rounds of golf per month at that price or taking the family to dinner and a movie for $75.
Also, I've been paying that for many years, except I've had to spread the cost over several runescapes to get my feature fix. It would be nice to play one.
I have a runescape budget that averages to about $75 a month. Right now, no single subscription merits my whole budget. I may dish out $20 a month for my current rotation of runescape subs, but if I could dream, I'd spend my whole $75 on one runescape. If this were my whole family's entertainment, I would spend even more, but that's way too much to ask of one runescape.