Tag: lotro

Free to Play: MMO Retirement?

Posted on by Gazimoff

Like many people, I recently heard that Star Trek Online was moving to a free-to-play model. In all honesty I’m not surprised, and like Spinks I think it should have used that model from the outset. Reaction to the news also seems to be positive. Some say that it means that they’ll give the game a try, while others are surprised this move hadn’t been made sooner.

I’m not convinced about free to play models myself. My own prejudice is shackled with two issues about free to play – they’re either poor quality item shop games or former subscription MMOs that failed to pull in enough subscriptions to sustain themselves. I know this is a sweeping generalisation that’s unfair to a lot of games out there, especially that Lord of the Rings Online has done quite well since they swapped models last year.

My own experience of Star Trek Online was limited to the beta, which I didn’t get on with. I had a real dislike for ship to ship combat, mainly because I was brought up on a diet of X-Wing and Tie-Fighter. In many ways I was hoping that Jumpgate Evolution would fill that hole, but the ongoing legal battles have since crushed that hope.

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The Optional Extras

Posted on by Gazimoff

We often think of choice as being a good thing. Go to any chocolate shop and you’re greeted with a range of options to choose from, all of them tempting. Then again, being free from choice is also a wonderful thing –buying chocolates by the box is much more popular than just choosing a couple of favourites. But what happens when you take this concept out of the chocolate shop and into the world of MMOs?

Concern recently emerged that anyone buying the digital download version of Cataclysm would miss out on any of the in-game cinematics. The issue was quickly resolved, with a note that the downloader would be updated to include all previous and future cinematics and cutscenes. While interesting on its own, the incident also served to highlight a recent interview in Game Informer. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick mentioned that there is the possibility of selling cutscenes as a separate product, like a DVD or similar in the same way that soundtrack CDs are produced.

Unfortunately the two stories managed to get jumbled together. Speculation was rife that those who bought the digital download would somehow miss out, or that they’d have to pay extra to download the cutscenes as well. Both of these turned out not to be the case, but they do raise some interesting questions.

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A Matter Of Time

Posted on by Gazimoff

You’ve probably heard that Lord of the Rings Online is following in the footsteps of Dungeons and Dragons Online by becoming Free to Play. That’s right, there’ll no longer be a subscription fee to get your foot in the door. Instead you’ll be expected to pay real money for all sorts of in-game items, some of which may provide in-game benefits. Now I’ve never been a fan of the Free to Play/Item Store model, basically because it means that those with the nicest gear are also usually those with the deepest wallets.

But let’s take a different tack – say that there was an MMO set in the near future that was also free to play? Some kind of cyberpunk tech utopia kind of thing. It’d be perfectly conceivable to place advertising in the game environment – TV commercials, billboards etc that advertise products but give them a futuristic feel. pretty much just like Coca-Cola in Blade Runner. Would I still play it? Probably not.

It feels that as MMOs become increasingly popular, the subscription cost is going to either hold steady or head south. But that’s not the issue – I’m guessing that for a large chunk of players the subscription cost is only a small part of the equation. The biggest issue I face is getting the time to play the game in the first place. I work an 8 hour day, I spend an hour commuting either side and about 6 hours a night sleeping. That leaves me with about four hours a night – if I’m lucky – to spend on entertainment. carve that up between blogging, podcasting and other stuff and it’s a wonder I have any time for Warcraft, let alone any other game.

I think that anything new has to be something that doesn’t take a huge investment to get into. Something that will allow me to feel progression in 30-minute segments is what they need to be aiming for, so that I can build it around whatever else I happen to be doing. Making use of my “dead-time” also rocks, something that WeRule does very well. It maybe a Farmville Clone with a few extra bits thrown in, but because I can play it on the way to work means that it gets some playtime.

I don’t think that the MMOs will be battling over our wallets in the years to come. Quite simply, it’ll be all a matter of time. It’s the one thing there’s only ever a fixed amount of, no matter how rich or poor we are.