f13.net

Launching sometime this Summer, they have a breakdown of free and premium content up (http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&template=content&func_id=3308&table=CONTENT), as well as an FAQ (http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&template=content&func_id=3304&table=CONTENT).

There's a lot of information in the links, but these are the basics:



(http://community.ageofconan.com/conan/frontend/files/content_chart_420.png)



I liked AOC enough that I'd be somewhat interested in this, except that I really dislike the class limitation, and there's no word on what happens if you make a "premium" class character and later switch to free (in other words, do you lose use of that character).

Well I guess that's it then...this is the way things are done with the current generation.  If your game fails to make a good first impression (and honestly, did anyone actually expect anything different from the same people that launched AO?), thus failing to retain a good chunk of people to justify a monthly subscription, then you go F2P in order to get back those you disappointed back and hope for the best.

This is how it should be done now, and I expect this to happen to FFXIV, Fallen Earth and even WAR before the year is out.  Older titles that are still alive probably wouldn't benefit as much, like DAoC or EQ, since development for them is essentially just monthly maintenance and balance tweaks.

It's not a bad philosophy, I mean..gotta make that money and put food on the table, but I'm sure it's gotta be disheartening to the devs to see all their work go to entertaining the internet bottom-feeders.

 :uhrr:

(http://philosophistry.com/scans/2010/okay-face.jpg)

/goes back to lurker-mode

I was mildly interested, then noticed that both AA and Sieges are not available at the free level.  First rule of F2P should be:  Don't limit character advancement, limit content.  Sieges are more of a personal opinion; I would go back for free if sieges were available.

Having played up to max level in AoC, I suspect high levels will feel too hard and very frustrating without AAs. Whether that will encourage people to pay a sub fee or just give up in disgust remains to be seen.

Edit: No, this is wrong. I got the AA system mixed up with feats.

I played Age of Conan during launch and don't remember any alternate advancement, can someone explain it to me?

I only ever tried the demo of AoC.  Going free means I might give it another chance if I'm looking for something MMOish.

Surely sieges are content?

I might give this a go; the free-to-play version of AO convinced me to sub and play for a couple of years. I don't have as much time now as I did then, but I'm content to take a look, especially since I'm out of wow for the forseeable future.

Yeah, I didn't word that properly.  Sieges should be included, or at least allow players to pay $5.00 and unlock them on the free account.  Something... other than just not allowing them at all.

This jumped out at me too.

Looking at that list, seems like the free accounts are pretty limited.

Freemium vs Premium FAQ is also up: http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&template=content&func_id=3308&table=CONTENT

Someone trying out a game for free to see if they like it is an internet bottom-feeder?   :ye_gods:

I stopped playing a while back (and don't plan on ever returning, F2P or not), but iirc, the AA system is something they introduced with the "Rise of the Godslayer" expansion and is mostly an offline advancement system: It's a perk-system that adds certain stats (like 'stun immunity' or 'reduced incoming damage') or specific skills to each class.

You can earn points to spend from raids or epic encounters or something, or you can research them using time (you select a perk to research and depending on how advanced it is it takes anywhere from a few hours to a few days/weeks; actual time btw, no need to be logged in).

Seemed to me just another way to grind, which is what the expansion mostly was: a huge soulsucking grind (with some of the prettiest graphics I've seen in an MMO though, "House of Flying daggers" meets Conan  :drill:).

I almost went back to AOC with the ROTGS expansion last year but it quickly became clear that much of the new content was faction and AA grinding. 

What are sieges?

I haven't played this since the first month, I think.  I really liked the game until I got to level 20.  Now I can't even really remember why I didn't, other than hating the community from the get-go, which may not be fair; a game community the first month isn't representative of the community that ends up sticking.




(Edited due to premature postulation).

This is just the kind of free play mode that allows people to have just enough access to the game to make absolutely sure that they don't want to pay a dime for it.

This isn't F2P, it's a vaccine.

It got me interested in taking my old AoC char out for a spin, but since it's a Herald and not one of the free classes, I promptly lost interest in AoC again. If they'd let me play my old char again for free they'd might be able to get  few cash shop bucks out of me.

Interesting. I got an email saying my account was reactivated through the end of May so I d/l'd the client and patched and tooled around a bit the last couple of days. Made it to Tortage with a barb and started to do the first quest to get my manacles removed and thought, 'Yeah, it performs a bit better than it did originally and it is kinda fun but I don't think I'll be subbing again'. Well now, F2P changes everything. This way I can still play a bit and convince my wife that it's ok to spend another $8 a month on Netflix!

Can't be a Dark Templar.  Lost interest.

That is a very limited class list. Should just put in a 10day or 14day trial rather than this crippled system.

Yeah I got that E-mail too - shame my PC's not up to it anymore...  :heartbreak:

On the other hand AoC was a love/hate thing with me. I love the graphics/animation, the melee system and the AA system even the sieges (when they worked). I hated the magic system, the PvP levels and the glacial rate at which they attempted to balance the classes or address even blatant unbalances (like casters decimating anything with the affront to wave a pointy thing at them for - what - two years?).

F2P may well get me back into the game - at least until SWTOR comes to a galaxy near me.

And really, isn't that what we're all waiting on?  :awesome_for_real:

 :Love_Letters:

I remember being psyched about the Dark Gimplar Templar from way before release. Then when I actually played the game, and realized it was the worst class I had ever played in an MMO, I switched over to the less cool, but WAAAAAAY more powerful Guardian.

I wonder how many of the people that get drawn into this are new people, who might have heard about AoC but were scared away by the accurately bad reviews, or returning folks like us who played and left out of disgust.

Even gimped I loved my DT.  It had the exact flavor I wanted.

Here's what Famine said on the topic:

Now that is kind of interesting.

Are people who purchased the game and subbed years ago considered former premium players?  If I can choose my DT as one of mine, then it won't be so bad.

Again...  :ye_gods:

They already had a free trial thing, full F2P is a different crowd of players entirely. See: the largely toxic GW community.

That said I haven't noticed LOTRO's community turn into gibbering morons since it went F2P so I think luckton is being overly pessimistic. (Although I would not be surprised to see AoC specifically become a cesspit.)

Well I tried to login tonight since their anniversary thing goes till the end of the month, but apparently my account still shows as inactive.  I guess they don't want me to try the game that badly :P

And I probably am, and I mean no offense to those who use these opportunities to try the games.  Can't deny though that there is a good chunk of people out there that can only afford free, and then have the nerve to whine on the internet about how the game should be or how their rig can't run what was designed to be a triple-A title.

Look, this is something you either do or you don't. (And design to or not.) These guys are going about it like they're trying to be a little bit pregnant. Which, honestly, is a symptom of why they failed in the first place: design timidity, dull-wittery, etc.

My opinion: a game that begins with a strong community is better able to absorb shocks to the community.

Well, the starter zones* turned into an absolute mess.  On the other hand, GLFF/Moria General were always worthless pits and F2P just gave them a new thing that could set off a torrent of bitching at the drop of a hat.

*: The Shire less so than the other two :oh_i_see:.

Does anyone still play?  I'm curious if this is their bid to cash in or if the population has been dwindling so much that they had their hand forced.

Ill be shocked if anyone here actively plays AOC

I bought a 3 month sub last year when the expansion hit but I only played 5 weeks out of those 3 months. I saved up the offline levels and distributed them accordingly when they maxed out for the remainder of the time.

I still actively play AoC. Of course, I'm also one of the very few who also really loved Asheron's Call 2, so take that for what it's worth.

The engine does perform much better now. As for classes, I cannot speak to the F2P setup as I subscribe to the game. Between this and EvE, I get a pretty good fix of MMOG-style play.

Regarding Dark Templars, I'm with Lantyssa. I love my DT, gimp or otherwise.

Don't tell me they are STILL gimp?

I don't think they are, but I don't know how others feel about them because I don't really pay much attention to players who whine about classes in MMOGs. Call it selective hearing for an old, jaded MMOG player.

My guy, Rottcodd, plays just fine for me.

I think you are being overly judgmental.  This game wasn't launched 6 months ago.  It survived as subscription only for 2 years (or more?).  They have obviously recognized that it will never grow subs unless they open it up.

And it's the same realization that Turbine came to with LotRO and DDO, along with Cryptic with CO and (probably before the year is out) STO.  Cryptic just came to that realization a heck of a lot quicker than FunCom and Turbine did. 

Again, I'm sure all those devs would have loved to have seen their products stay as monthly subscriptions, as it provides job security, a devoted fan-base and if your lucky enough left over to make money-hats with.  But it all comes back to first impressions.  The game needs to WOW people on launch day.  Not a week later, not a month later, surely not a year later after you've already been asking people to pony up $50 + $15/month.  Launch day.  Preferably also the days/weeks leading up to launch day.

AoC failed that test.  Just like AO before it.  Granted, the game 'worked'...people weren't trudging around and falling through a half-built, half-rendered and zero-content world, but the bugs, balancing, lack of end-game and server performance are all coffin nail items that you shouldn't have in a GAME.  Let alone a MMO.  Especially in a post-WoW world.

Kudos to FunCom for lasting this long on subscriptions...yay...woot...fine, whatever.  Maybe they 'can' come back with freemium play along with tie-ins to the next Conan movie.  It's still not going to erase the memories from those that have been burned not once but TWICE now from FunCom's sillyness.

AoC did exactly that.  Tortage is still the best start to any mmo ever.  It was in the weeks and months after launch that it failed.

Days after launch really, few people take weeks to burn through the first 20 levels in a fresh MMO.
No objections to Tortage though, it certainly was one of the most impressive first, uhm impressions I've had.

I'd say it's not so much the first days that are pivotal though (plenty of half-baked MMO's looked good for the first week) as it is the first month, which is usually included in the box.
A non-subscription AAA title can (read: is expected) to make most of it's return within those first 30 days, for an MMO on the other hand retention is as much a measure of success as box-sales (for me anyway, whatever that's worth  :oh_i_see:) and that counter only really starts after the first month.

Bit of a semantic discussion I s'pose, but how long 'till it isn't a 'first impression' any more? For an MMO I tend to take 2-3 weeks at least to make up my mind unless it's truly a pile of shite (as opposed to about 2-3 hours for a regular game).

AoC is the only MMO besides LoTRO I ever went back to after giving up on it before the first month was up btw.
The combat being almost the sole reason I felt the itch to revisit it; I still feel, despite all the imbalance & convoluted/broken implementation, FC deserves a gold star for trying that out, it was interesting and I hope it doesn't just get written off as a failure along with the rest of the game.

It also ignores the fact that Turbine stated opening their MMOs up to f2p doubled their revenue.  It's not a sign of a failing MMO, it's a realization that a game can produce more money by letting people pick their price point.

Now it doesn't guarantee the game will do well.  But it doesn't represent failure either.

Is this the part where the thread derails into the "Pay to Win" argument?

No, it's not. Is this someone's gimmick account?

Anyway, f2p got me downloading the client again. So there's something.

:why_so_serious:

No gimmick...just bored and being more vocal as of late...I'm sure I'll disappear again soon.

Put aside hindsight and think of all the games that launched subs and then went f2p. At the moment they announced going f2p, did anyone really think that was because the game was doing fine and the publisher was just iterating on a business plan?

Exactly.

These games at these budgets were not designed as actual f2p games. Those have much lighter budgets and way more major marketing pushes to get the millions of accounts needed to convert the 3-5% of people to paying at all and deep into it. These traditional MMOs were designed to sell boxes and collect a steady monthly fee, and had the huge budgets to go along with them.

The move to f2p was in recognition of flat growth/decline. It has worked out for some, which is great. And there's a fringe benefit as well:

The industry has been pushing on this in the West for awhile, but they couldn't get the traditional Western MMO audience to care about the style of games made specifically for f2p. However, they have been able to convert the traditional MMO audience from an lapsed subscriber to a free player who'll eventually pay something (ironically probably many of the same people who'd fall on a sword before RMTing for something back in the day ;) ). And it gives them a way to attract new users who may have been trained by then to think "free" means Flash games.

So kudos to them for a) keeping the games alive with a new model; and, b) retroactively proving there's a way to convert an established audience into a new one by lowering the barrier of entry to free.

This could be a harbinger of things to come for MMOs. There aren't enough people in the genre who'll flock to a big huge ($70mm+ budget) MMO for the company to make the revenue they need from the meager percent of people willing to pay. However, if you can get enough of them to buy the box, pay to beta for a year or two, work out all the kinks, build some awesome tools, get really efficient to reduce recuring dev/QA costs, then you could go f2p/freemium for lapsed users and put strong dollars into marketing to attract new free users.

Oh, I'm not going to claim the moves were a sign of increasing growth, but that's something very few games have enjoyed, and many of them were wrong to think they could price themselves at $15 a month for what they delivered.  Shoe-horning a sub game into a f2p one isn't without its difficulties either.

However I don't think it's been a losing proposition for any game that has done so.  People that subbed before are still going to spend that money, whether it's a premium subscription or on in-game items.  New players are going to get interested.  If they don't pay, they at least provide more bodies, which helps with social stickiness.  If they do pay, even for just a few items, it's income the company wouldn't have had otherwise.  Then there are the people who throw in more than what they would have under a monthly plan only.  A tiny fraction of the players, but they're worth several people each.

For LOTRO, yes, absolutely. The only reason it went F2P is because DDO already did and Turbine saw what happened there and thought "holy shit."

Actually if they are going to freemium that means they think they can get at least $15 a month from their players for what they deliver.    The advantage of freemium is that you get more customers who pay a monthly fee.   You also get customers who buy "lifetime" subscriptions to content chunks they'll never use for the amount of time it takes to be cheaper than simply subscribing.

If they don't have a product that people will pay $15 a month for then there is absolutely no reason at all to go freemium.   A game that bad can only switch to pay 2 win and enable gambling for loot.

Yeah, LOTRO is really a different animal here. The others, sure. Make a grab to keep cash flow coming in* to keep things open. For LOTRO, it was about money hats. Which they got.



*Remember that AO has been doing this for years now, long before it was fashionable.

Free was the only way they could get people to play it after, well, ok, I'll stop beating the dead horse. 

Been trying to play on and off for a couple days now. Patcher keeps downloading GBs of data than hanging on the loading screen. Exit the program, downloads more GBs, hangs on loading screen. Nice.

With the possible exception of Champions Online I'd say, I'd bet Star Trek Online isn't far behind.

There's a limited number of strategies to make money in business (and I'm doing this quickly, so apologies if I over-generalise / forget something):

1) Attract more customers to buy from you.
2) Sell more to the customers you have.
3) Increase the profit margin on what you currently sell.

Pure sub fees don't allow for (2). F2P does (as do cash shops) while also greatly expanding on the potential customers in (1). Arguably the entire Western market is so heavily subs-based because it worked for UO, while at the same time everyone handily forgets the rampant eBaying of characters / items from that title that showed what customers were willing to pay for on top of their sub fee.

F2P makes me want to come back and I never ever thought about that.  I think F2P is the future of MMO's.  You can play a game for free and if it sucks you in you start paying.  World of Tanks is doing this to me.  I am buying gold ammo because of the better damage.  
You can even buy a gold tank and the xp you get you can convert.

LOTRO has done a good job of offering items for sale.  STO not so much; the items they offered weren't good enough, maybe that's changed.

Edit:  Spelling

I was not aware anyone actually bought the ammo.  Isn't it worth a couple THOUSAND silver per shot?

People playing in the clan wars use gold ammo.

Not to derail, but this weekend I'm paying for premium and using gold ammo both to evaluate their worth and to more quickly grind up to my T-34.  Which I now have and is awesome!

Back to AoC, I always thought a good way for them to go forward is to have another focused leveling experience like Tortage.  It starts after Tortage and takes you from 20 to 30 and then have another 10 level experience.  You can still have the free range zone quests currently offered.  In an homage to the books, you can call each 10 level experience a "short story" or "Tale".  Conan and the Tale of Tortage, Conan and the Tale of the Poorly Itemized Zone, etc.

Conan and the tale of the No Quest Valley.

All my characters seem to be available to play, plus two slots I had open.

Forgot my Conqueror was in his fifites. Played my DT for a few and got rolled, probably need to re-learn. Rolled a Barb to relearn.

Conan and the Single Player Game Labeled as MMO?

Isn't that what SWTOR is doing?

There is no rule that says paying a sub fee makes you allergic to cash shop purchases. It may be more successful to allow f2p supported by cash shop, but there is no rule that says niche games with small hardcore player bases aren't willing to pony up more cash if the game sold more things besides a subscription.

Ahh...account was reopened for May, so they're up through today. Kind of fun to tool around with my lowbie alts but not sure I want to jump back into a game I left so completely, because the f2p would've been a lot easier to get into if I hadn't been playing a few nights with the full features available.

I do have to say, an unlocked month followed by f2p restrictions is kind of a good business idea, though. I'm ambivalent about the game and I considered a month sub.

I remember people saying that the first 20 levels of this game were really high quality.  Would it be worth jumping in to play them for free planning to drop the game afterwards?

I would say so, yeah. If you have a fairly good PC then you also get the bonus of some very pretty graphics too.

Tortuga is a must if you enjoy mmo, though it's heavy on solo play.

I've got a sealed box for AoC. Does/will that make me a former Premium player when the included month dries up?

I assume so, as long as the free month is still valid when the game goes F2P (they might just remove the option to register new purchased games when it does).  Aside from that, I don't think there's any benefit from owning the box; being a former Premium player is the same as being a free player, as far as I can tell (except that if your character was one of the restricted classes, you can still play them).

We'll have to see how they handle it.  In other games which have gone f2p you could add a code and it'd give you credit.  If you found old copies of LotR or DDO it was a cheap way to get a premium account for a month and be an upgraded account after that.

Apparently they're also adding a new hardcore PvP server called "Blood and Glory".
The rules:


I'm sort of interested; the main pull for Conan was always open PvP to me, if there was ever an IP screaming for it it's this one.
The fact it's no transfer and only one character is particularly enticing.
On the other hand I do wonder if they can generate enough interest in the game still to fuel an experiment like this.

[edit] forgot the link to the original article (http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/191/feature/5292/Age-of-Conan-Hyborian-Adventures-Hardcore-PvP-Incoming.html)

It sounds great on paper, until you get to White Sands as a lvl 8 and get camped all fucking day by a 15 Ranger.  It's not fun.  That fucker was there every single time I tried to go over multiple days - like it was his own little slice of heaven. 

It's a niche server. Basically, if you roll on it, it means you are ready for the whole experience of being prey and predator. I think we beat this horse so many times. Yes, 99% of humans only like to win or eventually a fair fight. The remaining 1% think the metagaming behind the unfair conditions of a completely open, factionless MMO server can be pretty fun. To them (or me) it sounds great after level 8 too.

They mention the word niche multiple times in their explanation about the Blood & Glory server.
Just let us play and kill each other, dammit.

I fully expect it to bomb for any number of reasons, which mostly boil down to: Funcom.
Expecting good implementation from them is reason enough to seek psychiatric help, especially considering this is basically an afterthought.
On top of which the game was never properly balanced for PvP to begin with.

That said; where most MMO's try to redefine how stale the reheated drivel they're delivering can be, once again FC pleasantly surprises me with an idea that's at least slightly provoking  :awesome_for_real:.

The only issue I had really with open PvP in AOC was the really easy to camp spawn points. No idea if this changed. That and the attacking while in a NPC conversation.

Absolutely. That really hurt the game even and especially on PvP servers.

Anyone see an update on when exactly this will go F2P?  2011 Summer is a bit vague. 

I'd like to try this out at least to see all the things I read about that were special and unique.  Seems like I could get at least 10-20 hours of entertainment from it for free.  Plus, it would be another MMO experience I can use to complain about the genre in more detail.

This is happening tomorrow, apparently. "Age of Conan Unchained"

They could have gone for honesty in advertising and called it Age of Conan: Uncharged.

Age of Conan: Uninterested.

Thoroughly enjoying Blood and Glory so far. Level 14 after a solid 5 hour session.

Not sure I understand how people play without stealth and/or friends though.

I checked this out several days ago.  It was sort of choppy on my very supped up computer.   I went to the forums where someone with a machine like half as fast as mine told me to l2buy a new computer.   All of this actually made me smile because I hate funcom and I'm glad to see the kind of new user experience they deserve.  :awesome_for_real:

Last I knew you wanted to force directx9 and there is a setting somewhere that when unchecked increases your framerate by 20%. It's checked by default. I forget which one it is. Do some searches for age of conan tweaks.

I really wasn't going to bother if a game that old was still forcing me to turn down settings on my current computer.    I was merely commenting on it to say Funcom hasn't really figured out how to optimize their client meaningfully yet. 

My friend made me try this out again. Turns out the F2P is pretty fucking worthless. I mean, really. No one in their right mind would play the game with the restrictions they put on the "free" accounts.

For example, if you want the expansion zones from Rise of the Godslayer on a F2P account, you have to first own the expansion, and then you actually have to rent access on a weekly basis. Same with a lot of the dungeons. Also, you are restricted from about 75% of the classes if you didnt have that class created before hand.

Now, they did add some cool things. Like "package deals" which are basically what you would expect as collectors edition stuff. They are pretty expensive, but come bundled with game time also. So if you are subscribing, they are kind of cool.

I actually resubbed for a month and have been having fun, but im sure something will happen to piss me off and make me quit soon.

I reinstalled to check out the new pvp server.  Sadly, only 4 classes are available for f2p accounts(Guardian, PoM, Barbarian, and Demonologist).  So, I hopped on to one of my old characters, and ran around a bit.  Found the npc for some quest I had, and hand in the items.  ...And get no credit for the quest.  Logged right back out.  Not even worth it for free.

I'm trying it for free, having not played it since the last public betas. I level really slowly so I've only hit level 6 in two play sessions. Man, this interface must have been designed by a PHP coder. The fonts look terrible.

I'm going to give it a whirl.  It might be free but there are some premium perks that are worth it to sub for 1 month just to get while you're leveling. My friends are telling me that its decent enough to kill some time with until the next set of big mmo releases.

So far I have been having fun. Nothing has pissed me off to make me quit yet. I have been playing on Tyranny or the old pvp server. From what I can tell, most of the less mature crowd left for the new server, leaving Tyranny a little quieter, but a lot more mellow in the ganking and chat spamming.

I would consider only rolling on the new server if I had a guild to go with. Item loss plus no guards make trying to quest solo an exercise in frustration.

I considered giving it another try, but they hid their download link well enough that during my search I caught sight of the f2p/sub differences in their faq. Too many restrictions for my tastes, especially not earning AA xp. I already thought it wasn't worth a continuing sub, don't know why they'd think I'd like to play a gimped character for free.

One thing I will mention also.

If you are playing and considering buying the expansion, get it from Amazon, not their ingame store. The expansion will run you around 900 points from their store (about $7), and give you basically access to expansion stuffs. If you buy it from Amazon, you get the expansion stuff, plus a bunch of preorder/collectors edition type stuff (pets and mounts and exp potions), AND a free month of Premium subscription for like $12.

"...I'm making a note here: 'huge success'!"

http://www.funcom.com/news/over_300000_players_join_age_of_conan_unchained_in_first_month

That is... unexpected.

I think they could make a lot more if they would lower the prices just a bit. Paying $5 for a piece of armor is a bit much when there are like 8 armor slots and several weapon slots on top of it.

I would be much more inclined to buy some if it was in the $1 to $2 range. Especially while leveling up.

Not to me. I think with this and LotRO's success, F2P is really the way to go for the future, especially for legacy MMO's.

Also note, it says new players, not paying customers.  I get the impression that a lot of these F2P games get a zillion new accounts on day 1 from curious newbies who play for ten minutes ang to away.  Probably doubly so for Conan, which draws in a lot of the massive "boobs and blood" demographic but doesn't really have much of either to offer them.

Well, yeah, that's kind of a given. You'll get lots of lookie-loos for the price of free. The key point to that is to know that those lookie-loos might never have appeared if you hadn't gotten F2P. They'd already written you off. I'd assume their monthly new subscriber numbers on average were somewhere between 0 and a lot less than 300,000. And even more important, those 300k new users, most of whom probably didn't spend a dime, somehow managed to double their monthly revenues. So... winning.

Would have been nice to know exactly how much revenue we're talking about that was 'doubled'.  Doubling $500,000, yeah, that's a good chunk of change.  Doubling $500 bucks...not so much...

Hey, it's still twice what they were making before. If you got $5 and somebody comes along and gives you $10, you're probably going to be pretty happy.

One of the summary notes says server activity has quadrupled, so it's a bit of a stretch but not inconceivable that with 300 000 new people that they were down to ~75 000.  A sub for AoC was $15 / month, right?  So we're talking ~$1 125 000 with a huge amount of variability because I can't be assed to find better numbers.

I'm still somewhat surprised by how well free to play models seem to be working.

People are bad with regulating themselves.  See our fascination with credit.  A few big spenders easily trump normal sub rates, and ala cart means people who maybe kinda wanted to play can buy only as much as they want.

Plus it just puts people in the world, and since MMO are social in nature, having people around keeps other people around.  It increases the chance of retention and drive-bys.

I spend more money on LOTRO now than I did with the $15 per month plan. The "F2P" model is working very well for Turbine I imagine.

Getting people to try something is critical to actually getting money out of them. To try most sub MMOs you have to pay out the box cost, which is a pretty hefty investment just to give a title a shot for 30 days.

Couldn't they achieve the same thing with a robust free trial?  Personally I just really dislike being posed with real money considerations when I'm playing, that definitely turns me away from the F2P model, even when its relatively well done.  I'd much rather have a once per month choice to make and then be stress free the rest of the month.  Though when the F2P games offer a monthly subscription that gives you pretty much everything you'd want then I think its a reasonable compromise.

F2P tells me that the game isn't competitive enough to demand a subscription, but the people running it are willing to extort money from teenagers.   F2P ruined D&D online, LOTRO, and EQ2 for me.  Give me an engaging free trial and I'll subscribe for a month. 

YAY! I'm a teenager again! Woot!

 :geezer:

It's becoming a prevalent scheme nowdays. I believe subscription based MMO's are likely heading out the door in favor of models like this.

Free to play made DDO awesome.

What's a 'robust' free trial? Most put caps over what a player could accomplish that easily stifled the 'true' game, plus they were used as gold farming fodder. When your restrictions on a trial are "can't talk to most players, can't leave certain areas, will hit the level cap before you finish the trial" etc it kills player interest in paying to play the full title.

F2P provides a clearer purpose - treat everyone as if on that 'trial' and then convince them to pay a few dollars a month for something.

It also removes the 'all or nothing' approach players have to take with sub games - pay $15 and earn back that value, or cancel their sub and not be able to play at all.

I know that some people hate the F2P model, but I prefer it. Sub-based games aren't doing as well because not only do players consume all the content at the fast rate they used to, now they no longer hang around for months after waiting for the new content - they cancel and move on to play something else.

There's a lot of reasons why it works though.   It's not just that it's a really good free trial.   There is also the factor that they're basically forced to keep releasing new stuff that the player base actually wants.   On the business end I'd say in the DDO model it forces them to act in a much more competent manner than is usual for these niche titles.

None of that is true for the pay2win shops though.   Those things are basically scams and as such are never going to lead to a good game really.

Tortage has been available as an unlimited trial for 100% of the classes for at least 2 years.

That's probably the best free trial in any MMO yet. So, it's been there for a long ass time and nothing happened.

Something happened all right, everyone and their dog played it, then the word got out it was all down hill afterwards and everyone buggered off (and left their dog in the rush to get out).

Which is always a problem with a trial:
- either it's better than the rest of the game (so why would I pay for the worse part?)
- or it's worse (so how would it convince me to pay?)

Unless of course it magically happens to represent the game perfectly (and when do the first 10-20 levels ever do that?).

This is actually exactly my problem with it.  It turns me off that the game is constantly trying to convince me to buy things.  I like the separation from the real world in game, I like that I don't have to be considering spending real money while playing, and I like that I can just sort of check out for a while.  Incidentally, this is the same problem I have with the Real Money AH in Diablo 3, even though the game isn't F2P and the AH isn't even Blizzard selling things.  Now, I understand why its there, and frankly I think I'm just going to do my best to ignore it, and I'll still play the game, as I've said in the D3 thread.  But even so, I'd much prefer games that just ask me to pay for access and then leave me alone.  I look at it like my gym membership - I pay my fee up front, then I can go when I want, as often as I want, and use whatever equipment I want for the entire month.

I also have a total aversion to ingame RMT. "Doesn't this castle look interesting? $15 bucks to open the door!" I can ignore stuff like xp potions (unless the game is balanced for them to boost sales, of course), but so far the f2p offerings have just seemed crappy to me. I'd rather pay the monthly sub and have full access to the uncrippled game.

It's good that it's helping some older games, but at the same time, those games are over for me now with no attraction to return. EQ2 being a slightly different scenario with the f2p walled off in its own garden.

I can understand the annoyance factor, but you don't even have to buy a box to try it. You have $30-40 of "credit" right there.  I think the model brings good discipline to game design.  It becomes quickly evident what players don't want to do and vice versa.  Also, as a player, every time the game asks you to buy something, it is effectively asking "are you still having fun?" 

Its not about the dollar value, its about bringing real world decisions into what were decisions entirely contained within the game world previously.  I might be just more averse to this sort of thing than the average person, I dunno.  Its not a mere annoyance to me, it literally makes me feel anxious to the point where I have trouble enjoying the games.

I'd buy this if these games were designed from the start with a F2P model in mind.  They weren't.  F2P has been tacked on much like their PvP.  The whole F2P thing is a last gasp effort to extract cash from a title before new additions to the MMO marketplace render them dead.

On the other hand, I would be quite interested in seeing how a AAA title releases out of the gate with F2P.  That has the potential to be more akin to what you suggest in terms of business plan and strategy.   

Is GW2 following the subscription-less model of GW1? That seemed ballsy at the time, and yet they're in a position to release a (pretty nice-looking) sequel...

To be fair, with full price expansions.

Imo, better than death by a thousand cuts. Diff'rent strokes and whatnot, Willis. But I agree with Malikili's further expounding on it not being about the dollar value, per se.

I can sort of understand the appeal of retail box expansions and flat-rate subscriptions, but I don't share that view at all.  Smaller transactions means I can have much finer control over where I spend my money, and just as importantly in an MMO, what messages I'm sending to a developer.

You have a point, but I have a hard time seeing how an F2P format would differ that much from what we get with transitions from sub to F2P. 

Yes.  I think there will be more vanity item stuff in their store this go 'round, but they've been very good about only making their store about optional stuff.

The PVP unlock packages are only semi-optional if you want to PVP really. You *could* grind out all the skills via pvp, but in practice that is kind of ludicrous.

You only need to grind out... eight? or whatever it is this time around.

If you find some magical build for one class that you will want to play for all time and won't ever get nerfed or end up in a bad meta, maybe. In practice you need a big pile of stuff open to you.

I didn't play GW for very long but the way i remember it was i made ONE build then played that for a while, by the time i was ready for a new one i had more than enough points to unlock what i wanted.  You just don't need to grind out every skill, you grind out one build and after that you are just playing normally.

Depends on what level of the game you are in.

If your AB / RA player you just need one build.

If you are a HA player 3 builds for truly optimal group finding, but friend groups (groups of friends who need 1 more, or your own friends) may need anywhere from 1 build to every skill unlocked. It also depends on what your actually good at.

GVG generally depends on the guilds mentality, what your good at, and what level of the game your playing on. Some guilds attempt to follow the meta and you generally need at least 6 bars worth of skills spread across at least 3-4 classes to be useful. Some guilds don't change there builds much, meta be damned, and pretty much happy if all you had was 7 skills and you showed up when everyone is on. Some guilds, if your lucky, like to experiment and try shit, so you kinda need everything unlocked, across at least 6 professions. Than you go into what people actually good at, for example prot or infuse monks don't see changes as often as interrupt/dom mesmers or whatever flavor of the month for rits and deverish. Split focused rangers see very few changes and so on and so forth.

Long story short, most people don't play at a high enough level for the game to demand them to change there bar once they figure out how to make one that isn't super tank mending warrior or glph of sacrifice meteor shower ele.

So this hit Steam, but it seems it's regionally locked. Every Steam user gets a special cape because I guess we like to wear our capes when we run to catch our short bus to the Hyborian Petting Zoo. There is also the usual StarterDLCpackBundle on sale for 6.50€:


http://store.steampowered.com/app/217760/

ALSO UNCHAINED IS THE WORD

Why would you want to accelerate your progress through the only part of the game that's worth playing?

Marketing logic.

Started this downloading before I left for work this morning. I will probably spring for the DLC too (it will cost less than my lunch will today, so why the hell not?). I have been itching for some swords and sorcery stuff, and this will be easy to drop once I realize how terrible it is  :awesome_for_real: If anyone wants to get together, look for me playing on Steam.

Seriously before F2P there were no game updates in DDO for over a year.  How the hell did F2P kill DDO?  Unless you loved running the Shroud 6 times a day or something.