You're conflating crafting and harvesting. Also bad troll is bad.
@Woolygimp I actually agree that subscription models are better for the reasons you stated, as well as others (e.g. immersion).
I said in another post that FTP is probably one of the more harmful things to the genre. Here's a quick list with explanations.
------------------------------------------------------
INSTANCING
Terrible design by it's own right but is also responsible for other detrimental design philosophies such as queuing and phasing.
A lot of people on FoH thought instancing was the future when it was first developed. They loved that it bridged the gap between single player RPGs and MMORPGs; celebrated the fact that they didn't have to "deal with people" and had their own slice of the world. People are starting to change their opinions and want their persistent world back. Hopefully developers follow suit and kick this to the curb.
PvE Instancing
Contrary to everything a live, virtual, persistent world should be. Basically reduces MMORPG's to single player games adventures or light co-op which is not the the strong suit of the genre due to limited resources. Single player games will usually have better combat/implementation.
PvP Instancing
Players fight over nothing as by definition instances aren't persistent. It's a repeatable match. Everything you do is for naught, and eventually gets quite tiring.
Players like fighting over things that have value: prime PvE locations, resource locations, towns, vendors, and so forth. Stop putting a stupid fucking castle in the middle of nowhere and tossing a stupid +5% crafting experience and expecting players to fight over it.Instead create awesome dungeons with great rewards (ala Darkness Falls) and have players fight over it, or galaxies with large amounts of resources (EvE). Asheron's Call had some of the most meaningful PvP because people -constantly- fought over the prime PvE dungeons and locales.
Queuing
A side effect of instancing. Turns cities & the world into a glorified chat room. Sit in town & push a button to get your daily dose of shitty instanced content. Kills world PvP too.
Phasing
Instancing the persistent world when developers don't think instancing instances is enough. If you want a single player RPG then go play a single player RPG...
------------------------------------------------------
Server Transfers/Name Changes
Belittles community and social aspects and reduces the ability to develop reputations, which is quite important. Gone are the days that you knew everyone on your server. If you were kind and gave new players items, if you were a great crafter that consistently stocked his store, if you ran great groups/dungeon runs, or if you were a giant douchebag that consistently mistreated people then you were known for these things. Now you can just change your name or transfer servers for the sake of $39.99 or whatever absurd price that Blizzard charges.
------------------------------------------------------
and...
Free-to-Play
Which I've already explained. Obviously pay to win is bad, but paying to look cool can be detrimental as well. People like being rewarded for accomplishing things, but instead when the reward comes from the end of a credit card it just ruins the game. That cool gear that player has? ...he paid for it. It just isn't right.
Developer's are rewarded for selling as much shit as possible out of the store. Not making a good game that lasts for years. Longevity? Who gives a fuck if a game runs for 5 years... to
developers now they just see that as more overhead; server costs etc. They'd rather just cash in, cash out, and get started on the next game. Why continue to support an older game with the FTP model? It's not like they're rewarded for people sticking around; in fact FTP profits decline rapidly after the initial launch; less people buying XP boosts & things that would help them level or have already gotten the items they want so no longer purchase as much.
