Planetside For Free

Eurogamer reports that Sony Online is moving Planetside to a free play for a year deal, somewhat similar to the Anarchy Online pricing scheme. From the article: "Access to the massively multiplayer FPS will be limited in terms of BattleRank and CommandRank. 'Essentially, new players will be able to have access to any part of the game but they will be limited on the diversity of their arsenal,' said developer Enrico Pallazzo in a recent forum post outlining various new additions to the game." Limited free play in an environment with ads. I guess I'm glad they're trying new options.

Comments

Ad-supported MMOs

[mendaliv]

I've gotta hand it to them, it's a pretty good idea to stick ads in the game.

I used to play Neocron back in 2003; cyberpunk atmosphere, and as a result, all sorts of fake ads for companies, etc inside the game, just for atmosphere. Why not advertise real things?

Of course, if their implementation is more along the lines of, every 30 seconds, an audio message pops up saying "Buy xxx product!", that's a little far. Same for if they spam your account or sign your CC up for free subscriptions to garbage.

If they got sponsored by Smith & Wesson though, it'd be cool to have S&W brand weapons in the game.

Question for current players

[faloi]

Let's assume that the limited arsenal new players get is going to restricted to weapons that were in the game originally (so nothing from the expansion pack). Are the new players going to be at an inherent disadvantage?

I might have to dust this off when it goes to free play. I had fun, but the lag was a bit much to make a FPS tollerable.