Following the UK "buy it" link I noticed the following:

* 4 months online play subscription included. Additional subscription fees thereafter.

Not the bloody subscription model again! Damn you MAN subscribers for encouraging them! I was really starting to look forward to this after toasting my first Bullfrog, and now the dream is over.

Yeah I'm wondering about that too. I find it strange that no one from the develpoer/publisher/insider has said anything. There's no mention on either the Dreamcatcher or Domination website.

I can see paying a monthly fee for a resource intensive game like Everquest, where people spend ungodly amounts of time hooked up to servers, but I find it difficult to justify the expense in the turn based world.

Hope someone in the know will clarify...

let me try to explain.
subscription fee is a payment for support.
in MMORPG this money are spent to peoples, who build the world, help to newbies.
in case of Massive Assault this money are spent to our support team and our dev team.
To develop and produce new content for the game we need this money. For example - producing of one beautiful map takes more then one man-month. How much subscribers do we need to make one map every month?... Aslo, we improving the game, adding there new features which increase fun, supporting tournaments and clan wars and many other things. This all cost money, and our subscribers is only way we can take it.

From GameSpy:
"There are just too many games like Rome: Total War or older games like Civilization III that feed that strategy jones and let gamers play across the 'Net for free."

Massive Assault is a niche game, unfortunately.

That means low ROI.

We have two choices:
- Leave the market.
- Raise the price.

Then stop selling it at Ј20, sell it at the standard game price and drop the subscription. Or drop the need to buy a boxed copy at all, let people download it and charge a subscription.

I agree with Gamespy, playing across the net for free is a staple of the industry outside MMORPG, and it would take a LOT to convince me to invest so much in a single game. This looks fun, but it's not enough to subscribe.

Retail price is fixed by retailer and publisher, not developer.


We are going to provide pure network version for free download and charge a subscription.

Opinion:
Massive Assault is the only game on net which resembles oldschool wargames a la Avalon Hill(Russian Campaign, Panzerblitz, Wooden Ships).
It isn't perfect and I've never found a game to cover all angles for all situations and player abilities, but MA is IT! Reality makes wargames limited to the rules and formats presented, love 'em or leave'em(or make a better one!).
I would like to see more options available to cover those ideas presented by lots of players to even playing fields. How difficult would that be? I am willing to pay for the hours of good fun on this site.
I shot thousands($) at bars, on chemicals,blah,blah....and the price I am paying for MA is a pleasure.
Thank you developers and support people!
God bless(or Nothing bless) you and yours.

Are my LAN and Hotseat functionality going to cut out too? I like playing games like this with my little brother or friends that stop by. Usually we have to content ourselves with like mariokart or some fps or something, and strategy gaming is a welcome change... if 4 months from now I can't play hotseat.. I'll be disappointed. (though, now that I think about it, I payed for MAN till I lost my broadband, so I'll probably end up forking over for continued net play here too, now that I've gotten it back.)

What is the subscription cost? I don't see it listed on the site.

no. LAN and Hotseat will always work in Domination

I have only played two TBS wargames successfully via the net: Steel Panthers and MA. Steel Panthers had its issues (too easy to cheat).

Other games I've tried failed (for me) for a variety of reasons: too difficult to find players, games took too long to play, rampant cheating/quiting, not enough developer/community support.

I only paid $10 for MA from eBay (and that included shipping!). For that $10 I got a very good player matching service that includes ranking. I get unlimited access to it. While that is great, one has to recognize that these services don't just pay for themselves.

My hope is that the Domination subscription would be for a MAN-type service that includes player matching, new maps, player rankings etc, but the game should still have the ability to be played via e-mail or Game Spy without the service. It is just up to you to find players yourself.

I'll admit, I've never heard of a cheat for MA multiplayer, which is good. Awful when you worry about the other guy cheating.

Hey, that bot just moved from one side of the map to other and killed that tower in one turn. As if cheating wouldn't be noticeable in MA.

How often do remember, between turns, how much money each enemy city had? How often do you remember exactly where every enemy unit was?

When those magicians like Tiger start whipping up on me, I just shake my head and wonder where those cheat commands are found.

You probably wouldn't notice if the game got hacked. But at least that requires some technical expertise. In so many other games (especially in games with random elements) all you had to do was reload and replay your turn until you got the result you want. Or in games with Fog of War, you could send a scout into enemy territory to see what was there and then reload the turn (essentially recalling the scout) and make new moves based on the information you got. So that is one of the great things about MA: They took all the randomness and FoW out (two things I would normally consider essential elements to a war game) and that makes cheating far less prevalent.

But anyway...my point wasn't to bring up cheating...just that the service provided with the boxed version of MA is quite a value compared to other turn based games. It is what makes the multiplayer/internet part of the game "work" and without multiplayer, I'd have lost interest in this game after about 3 weeks.

If it were up to me (and it isn't), there would be a subscription matching/ranking service to help you find people to play, and a Play-by-email (maybe with the hot seat mode?) and LAN capability built into the game for people who don't a need matching service or just want to use Game Spy.

Personally, I'd like to see new scenarios released. Each one is a little puzzle waiting to be solved, and I love it

does domination come with a scenario editor? I know the orginial had a botched up thing that was very user unfriendly. A good editor is something that can help keep games alive. I know there's the issue with creating new maps, but the scenario thing was a good idea.

LOL, unbelievable. I have played many online games, and there is no way I am going to pay a monthly fee to play a turned based game online.
You cant get me to believe the line about "new maps" and such, because the fact is MANY games, which require no monthly fee give new maps, patches, new content, etc. Battlefield 1942 and vietnam, counter strike source, nearly EVERY FPS game out there gives new maps, fixes their bugs with patches, and provide online playability..... for no monthly fee.

I was thinming of buying this game, now I wont be, so not only will you not be getting a monthly fee from me, you lost a potential customer because of your greed.

my opinion is that...
1)if price of MAN (and probably MA-D) is about 7-10 $ this i can easily afford without any problems for my budget.Actually this is not such a huge price...this is much less than a dinner in restaurant costs.(and this is just one dinner and in MA i spend at least 60 hours a month).So this price is acceptable and i not see reason to complain.
2)that i really do want is to support wargaming.net.This small company made BEST TBS among others.On other side - their financial is not very good and i see reason for that - MA is a game for those who want to think and probably there wont ever be millions copies sold like some stupid games like "Sims".
So MA is a niche game and being in this niche i dont want it to disappear.So paying a membership cost is least i can do for wargaming.net
3)for that cheap bastard who wrote previous commentary - you bough game you got a full singleplayer mode with campaiigns and scenarios and other stuff - this is what you get when you purchase any other game - plus you get 4 months of free internet play...what the heck else you want? (probably you will NOT want to play this game for 4 months or ever 1 month because i doubt you are clever enough)
4)Majority of those who puirchase MA-D now probably will NOT pay it more than 4 months....show me ANY strategy game which you play for 4 months in row or more..probably not many of such games.
If after 4 months you get yourself comfortable in our community you probably will want to pay such a little sum for more maps and support.