If you want new content you gotta pay for it.

[ironhands]

Actually everything u described apart from the holy trinity defiance has the same as DCU had at launch, if we are comparing them. Im not sure how it is now but at launch DCU and defiance now are pretty much ecactly the same. The chat was horrible, crafting is the same, grouping was done by using a quick drop down box like defiance, clans were the same. If you count the holy trinity the defintion of mmorpg then i agree with u defiance is different, but everything else you listed were the same.

Sure, but who's to say Defiance won't add those things further down the road anyway. Still wouldn't really be classified as an MMORPG though, since as you say, the "holy trinity" is missing, but would definitely have stronger ties.

[IGears]

Actually everything u described apart from the holy trinity defiance has the same as DCU had at launch, if we are comparing them. Im not sure how it is now but at launch DCU and defiance now are pretty much ecactly the same. The chat was horrible, crafting is the same, grouping was done by using a quick drop down box like defiance, clans were the same. If you count the holy trinity the defintion of mmorpg then i agree with u defiance is different, but everything else you listed were the same.

Well "Holy Trinty" is three parts of the same thing but as a separate whole entity (confusing). so that cant be the best way to describe something.

[skepticck]

I just want to put things into proper perspective here.

The first big AAA MMO to offer the Buy to Play business model was Guild Wars 2, which released in late August of 2012. The box price was the same as Defiance. There is no subscription fee, but the game is supported by a cash shop. Unlike Defiance, you can actually convert in game currency into cash shop currency, so dedicated players can often buy some items from the shop with out spending cash, while people who have less time to spend playing and are willing to lay out some cash can get something worthwhile. (It's not a "Pay to Win" cash shop by any means, nor are cash shop items required to properly enjoy the game).

I've been playing GW2 since launch. I've already gotten 1,400 hours from it so far and there are still areas of the game world and content I haven't touched yet. Compare that to 40-80 hours before exhausting Defiance content and you can already see a huge disparity.

GW2 has also seen FREE monthly content additions every month since launch and continued improvement and new maps for it's PvP and World vs World systems as well. There has not yet been a paid DLC or any other game content you need to pay for. The total amount of free content added since launch is probably at least the equivalent of all the content Defiance shipped with for the same box price.

Just like everything with this game, it looks much better when judged as an online Third Person Shooter than it does as an MMO. Shooter fans may find the level of content and the DLCs on par with expectations. MMO fans can only find this game to be a thread bare offering with extremely little content and value for the box price.

I'd also point out that before release, Trion said that the DLCs would require purchase to unlock some items and rewards released in those DLC packs, but you would not need to buy the pack to actually participate in the new content. If that has changed, then they really misrepresented the role that DLCs would play for the community.

To say I'm disappointed with Trion would be an understatement.

There is no comparing the amount of content that GW2 had at release with what little Defiance has now.
Also (like you said) ArenaNet has been releasing FREE content on a monthly basis, almost 9 months since release there is still no talk of a paid expansion, just free content FOR EVERYONE.
Here you get (for the same price), very little content, a very small portion of a large map, a few weeks of gameplay (if you pay casually), lack of many of the most basic MMO features and now a mere month after release still no new content or even talk of any free content but they are already promoting their first PAID dlc.
No wonder the game was so content and feature light at release, seems like they took a few pages from EA's book and decided let's give the strict minimum of content we can get away with and make the rest paid dlc's.
Well not exactly day one DLC but in MMO term it's close enough.

[ironhands]

No wonder the game was so content and feature light at release, seems like they took a few pages from EA's book and decided let's give the strict minimum of content we can get away with and make the rest paid dlc's.
Well not exactly day one DLC but in MMO term it's close enough.

The first DLC is actually a month late, but there are a lot of free portions regardless. To what extent, we'll have to wait until the DLC is actually pushed out.

[UncleArkie]

Different game, different payment model. Also I have a feeling that the game is financially carrying the show until they have the over all ratings and DvD sales for the first season, this is expensive stuff they are doing. They have single shards when it comes to regions and so on. Besides Guild Wars 2 was so boring and chaotic that you could argue it's still in beta.

[skepticck]

Different game, different payment model. Also I have a feeling that the game is financially carrying the show until they have the over all ratings and DvD sales for the first season, this is expensive stuff they are doing. They have single shards when it comes to regions and so on. Besides Guild Wars 2 was so boring and chaotic that you could argue it's still in beta.

Different game, you could argue that one, different payment model not, they both have the same model (and the same price), that is b2p (buy to play). It being boring and chaotic is your opinion and i respect that even if i don't agree at all and i've been playing it since release and still am.

[Ryme]

One point someone brought up that is that they aren't opening up any new territory with the DLC. This means all the new events are just going to be crammed into the existing zones. This is not a big deal for arkfall and emergency events, since they just get put into the existing rotation.

It does bring to question, how much depth the new storyline will have. Is it just going to be a rehash of instances and zones you've already played through? Not even bringing the "paid" component into it, but does anyone expect the new story to be anything substantial, or will it just end up being another set of side missions?

[Orge Lambart]

all I see is yada yada yada.. guild wars 2 yada yada yada. All games aren't created equal, MMO doesn't magically mean anything other than Massively Multiplayer Online game. What you think an MMO should be doesn't matter. Massively Multiplayer Online this game is that.

As I've been sitting here thinking I'm curious what content people want that this game doesn't have? What the ability to go farm the same boss over and over again to look for better weapons. Raid content? More group content? Thus far we have 7 co-op missions, numerous dynamic events, and quite a few side mission repeatable quest.

So what content do you want the game to have but it doesn't? Also like I said, it's not an MMORPG, it's an MMO <--- IE Massively Multiplayer Online game. Cost >> game time is much higher than 90% of console games and 60% of PC games released in the past 6 years.

[Orge Lambart]

One point someone brought up that is that they aren't opening up any new territory with the DLC. This means all the new events are just going to be crammed into the existing zones. This is not a big deal for arkfall and emergency events, since they just get put into the existing rotation.

It does bring to question, how much depth the new storyline will have. Is it just going to be a rehash of instances and zones you've already played through? Not even bringing the "paid" component into it, but does anyone expect the new story to be anything substantial, or will it just end up being another set of side missions?

I don't think it's possible right now to say whether or not we'll get new areas of the map opened up with the first DLC. They made no mentions of that in the listed features, and outside of the blog we have no other information on the DLC. So to assume it's not going to include an expanded map is pretty premature at this point.

[JonDav]

There is no comparing the amount of content that GW2 had at release with what little Defiance has now.
Also (like you said) ArenaNet has been releasing FREE content on a monthly basis, almost 9 months since release there is still no talk of a paid expansion, just free content FOR EVERYONE.
Here you get (for the same price), very little content, a very small portion of a large map, a few weeks of gameplay (if you pay casually), lack of many of the most basic MMO features and now a mere month after release still no new content or even talk of any free content but they are already promoting their first PAID dlc.
No wonder the game was so content and feature light at release, seems like they took a few pages from EA's book and decided let's give the strict minimum of content we can get away with and make the rest paid dlc's.
Well not exactly day one DLC but in MMO term it's close enough.

This. GW, with a similar pay model, absolutely destroys Defiance when comparing their releases and that's what has fustrated so many people. They have seen it done the right way so with Defiance being an absolute mess, it's difficult to sit back and dwell in blind faith.