MMO chronicles: my first foray into F2P gaming
Let it never be said that I have a fond place in my heart for free-to-play titles, <i>especially</i> MMOs. Like World of Warcraft, and EverQuest before it, I have played MMOs for more than 10 years, each time subscribing to a model where my time and skill are the only currencies required for seeing all these games have to offer once I have paid my way through the door.
Like DLC, F2P titles burden me with the overwhelming feeling of being nickel-and-dimed for content. I also can't shake the feeling that F2P has become the new business model for games that weren't good enough to command monthly subscribers.
Let's review: Dungeons & Dragons Online, Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings Online, APB: All Points Bulletin (and many more) have completely failed to hit critical mass--often in spite of AAA IP--because of behemoths like World of Warcraft.
Apologists can (and will) dismiss the comparison, but it bears driving the point home: these games could not survive by charging people a monthly fee. Evidently, the quality or quantity of the game was not sufficiently compelling to draw players away from their MMO of choice, or to attract new players into this classic model.
The solution has become the free-to-play model, which allows the developers to drastically downsize server and support operating costs in favor of a system that charges players a few cents here or there for weapons, armor, vanity items and the like. It's the ultimate shoestring survival budget.
Until today, I have not had one lick of a desire to play an F2P game, but Valve's recent flirtation with the genre has inspired me. Over the next couple of weeks I will give my thoughts on playing my first F2P title, Forsaken Worlds. During my time with the MMO, not only will I test my prejudices against the F2P model, but evaluate the game itself as a player who has spent considerable time with MMOs over the years.
I'll see you in Eyrda.
Like DLC, F2P titles burden me with the overwhelming feeling of being nickel-and-dimed for content. I also can't shake the feeling that F2P has become the new business model for games that weren't good enough to command monthly subscribers.
Let's review: Dungeons & Dragons Online, Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings Online, APB: All Points Bulletin (and many more) have completely failed to hit critical mass--often in spite of AAA IP--because of behemoths like World of Warcraft.
Apologists can (and will) dismiss the comparison, but it bears driving the point home: these games could not survive by charging people a monthly fee. Evidently, the quality or quantity of the game was not sufficiently compelling to draw players away from their MMO of choice, or to attract new players into this classic model.
The solution has become the free-to-play model, which allows the developers to drastically downsize server and support operating costs in favor of a system that charges players a few cents here or there for weapons, armor, vanity items and the like. It's the ultimate shoestring survival budget.
Until today, I have not had one lick of a desire to play an F2P game, but Valve's recent flirtation with the genre has inspired me. Over the next couple of weeks I will give my thoughts on playing my first F2P title, Forsaken Worlds. During my time with the MMO, not only will I test my prejudices against the F2P model, but evaluate the game itself as a player who has spent considerable time with MMOs over the years.
I'll see you in Eyrda.
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Comments
A couple examples. I played DDO on this weekly basis for about three months on the free content alone, then another month on the content I spent about $20 acquire. The same amount of time in WoW would have cost me more, and I would have been left with the nagging feeling that I was wasting my money if I skipped a session, and I don't like that.
Guild Wars cost $50 to purchase originally. I believe I've gotten a great return in gameplay hours, but in the case of Guild Wars, I was able to stop playing for a while, and casually pick it back up any time I desired, without incurring a monthly fee while I was doing something else.
One of the first things I noticed about Forsaken World is how strongly it is appealing to the casual player.
The launch menu, like most recent MMOs, has a rotating news ticker that highlights the newest events and features the game has to offer. Today Forsaken World is offering these choice picks:
1) Pet Item Sale: "Skills, pets, dawn scrolls and more!"
2) Guide - Pet Inheritance System: "Let the old live on in the new!"
3) Guide - Wedding System: "Learn how to get married!"
4) Best In Show - Dog Show Event!: "Think you've got a good dog?"
In-game marriage have been a staple of "family guilds," better known as casual players, since Ultima Online. Even in EverQuest, I couldn't go a week without a marriage being conducted in some particularly idyllic setting, almost always between members of guilds known to have no prowess with advanced/difficult content.
More recently, Blizzard has begun to monetize the casual player's love of cute, but ultimately useless pets, called companions, that follow the player around the game world. To wit, $10 will gain you the companionship of cute little critters like the Cenarion Hatchling.
While I do not begrudge players buying a pet (it's their hard-earned money after all), I begrudge the cost. $10 is very near to the monthly subscription price, for a pitiful fraction of the content. Is $10 really worth a vanity pet, when $15 is the price of a ticket for hundreds of in-game pets, items and upgrades? I doubt it.
But I digress.
By now you've likely noticed that I throw "casual" around almost as a pejorative. That's close to the truth, as I do not love players who expect the same quantity and quality of content as another player just because they've also paid the $15 to play. That's only the price of entry, my friends, and it's a combination of time and skill that warrants the rest.
This war has engulfed World of Warcraft over the years, and in many respects the "casual" mentality has won out. Items of unthinkably rare quality are now easily obtainable, where years ago they were mythical to most, and obtained by an elite few who exhibited the coordination required to obtain them. But "casual" puts asses in the chair, and dollars on the table, so it's no mystery why Blizzard has leaned in that direction. It's also no mystery why Forsaken World follows the same course.
It's amazing what a launch screen can tell you about a game.
That's fine, but I'm still unable to launch the game, so I was hoping I could verify my Steam cache. That won't work when the version Steam provides is different from what Forsaken Worlds' updater provides, which means I'm just in an endless loop of patching and verification.
For that matter, the game's own verification says my cache is fine, so I am currently out of solutions that could get this game up and running.
I lightly disagree. Forsaken World has largely positive reviews on Metacritic, and it seems to have a fairly impressive graphics engine. I'm also encouraged by the "vibrant community" and large player base some of the reviewers report.
I'm sure DDO is a fine option all the same, however.
Alas, if only my life were so difficult!
It's time to consider another MMO. LOTRO or DDO look appealing, but that may be because they're the first ones that come to mind.
I have not experienced this in any way. However, I have only played the game with close friends who learned the game alongside me, and we play rather insularly.
Sneaking around feels like sneaking around, jumping and climbing around in dungeons is lots of fun. It's not Assassins Creed good, but it does feel like you are in more control of a character exploring a dungeon. Also the dungeons have traps, and secret doors and all sorts of cool ways to interact with them.
My biggest complaint is that DDO is an all or nothing system. By that I mean you only get any real experience for completing a dungeon. So if you get into a long dungeon and have to quit you are only going to maybe pick up a small amount of XP for accomplishing a few things in the dungeon. This isn't much of a problem early on when you can clear out must dungeons in 10-15minutes, but then some take 30 minutes and others take an hour+.
This is all good if you have the time, but frequently I don't. Also my other complaint was they broke soloing, sorta. They kind fixed it in that they made some dungeons easier to solo, which is fine. But then they made it so that some can only be played at the solo difficulty if you are by yourself. So that really removes some of the challenge that made some of the dungeons really fun.
But again that's more a nitpick then a problem and really only if you are of the soloing type. If you are into the group aspect then the game really shines as.
It isn't bad, easy enough to pick up - its a little grindy, but I like that. Art style is different enough for me not to be immediately bored of it like other WoW clones.
Oh, and you can move around in the world by clicking like in Guild Wars.
EEECH, That was the first thing I turned OFF in guildwars.
In cities? Its amazing /lazy
I did something similar in GW by clicking an NPC in the distance, but in FW you can also accomplish this by clicking anywhere on the map, or using the NPC drop down included in the map interface.
I guess I wasn't referring to the "click on the ground to move" functionality, which is what I think you're referring to above. I hated that.