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Dark Age of Camelot Releases Old Expansion as Patch
Popular MMOG Dark Age of Camelot has had several expansions since its launch, and recently the Shrouded Isles expansion was released to the playerbase as a patch to the game. This essentially ensures that anyone who purchases even the base game is upgraded to the better graphics engine of the Shrouded Isles expansion. The patch is downloadable from FileFront and ValueCommerce. Another notch in the trend of Massive games trying to emphasize free content additions as a selling point.
WoW has all but destroyed the player base of DAoC. Their endgame relies on a large number of people playing, and unfortunately it's spun into a rut thats going to take a miracle to fix. WoW and EQ2 have finally nailed the coffin shut on that game imho.
Mythic has had no real compeition in their niche until now. I hope they enjoyed their hayday while they had it.
with subscription based mmorpg's you're making a purchase EVERY SINGLE MONTH.
and as such you could expect them to keep the game intresting without you paying even more. could, of course, but usually wont because hey, it's another profit oppurtunity.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Um - I would hope they are charging more than what it takes to maintain the game. They are a company in business to make a profit afterall.
I don't consider the extra content free - it makes me much happier paying the monthly fee when I know that there are quarterly "expansions" included in that cost.
As to CoH vs. WoW - to each his own. I've been playing CoH since June and still haven't seen and done everything. Admittedly I only have time for a couple of hours everyday, so I am by no means a hardcore MMO player.
I tried the beta for WoW and just couldn't get into it. I'm sure it's a great game and lots of people seem to love it. Not enough spandex for me though.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Mythic had 2 expansions "Foundations" that they released free of charge. One was an entire housing system and zones and the other was a makeover of the RvR zones and system. They have done a pretty good job with making sure that the 12 dollars a month doesn't just go to bug fixing and server costs it also pays for added content if you want to download it. On top of that they have had 2 yearly pay expansions (with the 3rd being released tomorrow Dec 7th)
I hope more companies follow Mythic's lead and make the standard monthly mmo fee actually feel like it is paying for something.