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Free-To-Play Switch Going Well For D&D Online
babboo65 writes "Dungeons and Dragons Online is enjoying a second life in terms of player count and buzz, all thanks to its new business strategy: giving the game away. Turbine is making their MMO as accessible as possible, and that includes making players who don't pay anything as happy as possible. Subscriptions are up 40 percent. Ars explores how free can be very profitable."
The game is a whole lot of fun. I really hope this serves as an example for future online games. Micro Transactions really aren't all bad, especially the way that Turbine is doing them.
Yay, I have a sig.
I know I'd probably never subscribe to a MMO. But this business model wouldn't make me feel "stuck" with a game I might, or not, like.
If it proves to be a success, it will likely be copied by numerous other actors in that field.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
What they are giving you, essentially, is an unlimited free trial period to play the game. You can download and play the game for free and, chances are, if you really like the game and decide to keep playing it, you will eventually give them some money. It's a fairly clever strategy - I wonder who else will follow suit (Warhammer?).
Matthew 7:13-14
Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
How much easier could Satan be making it than providing the game for free online?
Some required reading
Second Life has been doing this for years and years, relying soley on microtransactions.
From all accounts, they're still doing very well.
This is the model to explore for iPhone game developers who are complaining about market resistance to price points above $2, and piracy. I also wonder if we'll see developers for the Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Arcade) and PS3/PSP (PlayStation Network) give it a crack. I constantly end up with unusably small amounts left in my "wallet" on these services, and I wouldn't think twice about getting rid of it for small gains or more content. I guess you could say the cut price Rock Band Unplugged on the PSN is a start, but there's still an entry fee.
A friend put me onto Runes of Magic (which uses Micro Transactions) as I was an ex-WoW player, vowing to never pay for MMO games again. So I played for free for a couple of months and enjoyed not having the "pressure" to get value for money that a monthly fee seems to induce. The decision to buy a mount using real $$'s came easily. A few more purchases later, I'd spend about $50 and felt I had got my moneys worth. I spend when *I* want, not when a certain date passes. I can take a break for a few weeks and nothing is lost (although a few purchases do have a time limit)
The model works very well!!
I wholeheartedly support this courageous move.
I think free-to-play games with microtransactions must strike a careful balance in rewarding those who put money in but at the same time not putting the free players at a disadvantage. For instance, I play on Jade Dynasty and shop items tend to be items that makes things easier such as getting mounts and cosmetic items but nothing that would put them at a clear advantage over non-payers. Besides usually people sell shop items in the market for in-game money and it's not actually that difficult to earn money if you're willing to put some time grinding.
This is why you never code your bots while drunk.
Whoever did this should be ashamed.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Log().Get(logDEBUG) << parent << " does not compute";
As much as it might make sense financially, I have never particularly liked the concept of microtransactions in most games. With games that charge a monthly fee (or are somehow entirely free), your "status" in game as relative to other players is based on time and skill. With microtransactions it's time, skill and how much money you can scam off your parents credit cards. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who are willing to pay a small sum whenever they feel like it to avoid being tied to a game through a monthly payment, but it throws any notion of the game being a level playing field out the window.
I remember back when I used to play WoW (before they ruined it with those godawful expansion packs (not that I'm bitter or anything)), I would look at a level 60 character with a full Tier 3 armor set and think "That guy must really be playing a lot/be really good at this game". Had the game supported microtransactions my most likely thought would have been, "So that guy has a decent gaming budget/generous parents, big deal.".
My apologies for the somewhat rambling nature of this post, I am in a hurry.
I'm trying out DDO, again.
For a simple critique... the game has many small issues, which most other games have already dealt with.
Their auction house is a disaster. The quests are fine, except it becomes a simple grindfest way to early. It's an instanced world, similar to Guild Wars, not an open world like Eve, or even EQ or WoW. It's very linear. That can be fine, but don't expect to simply go out and explore and achieve anything.
The graphics are good, and run pretty smooth. The skill acquisition and character development (feats and enhancements) is very nicely done, and allows for a several different ways to play any of the classes. While you do define your class and race from the start, there are a number of ways you can customize your toon to your vision of it.
One big drawback for free players is there are limitations to things which Turbine doesn't quantify, such as: there's a limit to gold you can have per level, but nothing ever tells you how much.. until you sell something in the auction house and can't get your gold from the mailbox because you've gone over a non-disclosed limit. Pure frustration there.
While overall it's a game I'd recommend, I'd have to say it has one other significant downside, that being the seriously myopic players. Not all of them obviously, but the few truly hostile ones to anyone new, and anyone who has anything good to say about any other game puts this crew into the "worst" category of people I've dealt with in online games, ranging all the way back to the original Diablo.
But try the game, it's enjoyable enough, if you can ignore some of the "D&D started everything, bow down to us" crowd. My caveat is, i started playing D&D in 1977, no need to be rude or arrogant about it.. it is after all, just a game.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
I played and occasionally still play one or the other MMO that relies on similar models: you can play free and have a great game and you can upgrade and get some more benefits anytime you want.
Much easier to get folks hooked with some quality game time than with a shiny box, and once they are, they quite happily play some premium.
Now this is not new, there are a lot of folks doing this, mostly small indy developers with smaller mmo's and browser games and they seem to be doing very well.
What I don't get: Suppose you have been a subscriber for 3 months. While you are subscribed you have access to all adventure packs etc. Now when you unsubscribe do you lose access to all the content even though you spent 45$ on the game? In contrast when you buy the adventure packs via micro-transactions, do you gain access for ever?
Too fucking bad you can't install it within linux! One would think a desperate corporation would have all bases covered, but no. Let them release an update that will let me install it and they'll have my addicted ass.
because I am not loading a windows partition just to play games.
One reason I like Blizzard is that they have kept us in the loop for a long time, even before it was simple
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I don't work at Turbine anymore, but I actually wrote the code for new player tutorial they're using now, and it's kinda cool seeing so many people use it. And I wish Turbine well, they treat their employees better than most gaming companies.
One is "good", one is "evil". At least in my opinion.
The "good" way is to trade money for play time. You can either invest time to hack, slash, grind and harvest whatever you need. You need resources, you need some equipment, you need access rights to some area, so you play and grind it, you spend time, then you may access it. Or you spend RL money and access it now. The way I see it it offers people the option to either spend time or money to get what they want. I have money but little time, so I'd probably opt to spend some cash to play the few hours I have every week to do what I want, I would buy the potions, items and whatever else to just access the "juicy" content. Others may have time but no money, so they will invest a few more hours to harvest what they need.
The "evil" way is to get you hooked with the "free" content, but to access the better, more interesting, end-game content, you have to cough up the dough. Where you can only succeed in certain areas when you have the stuff that's only available for hard cash.
I don't mind the first way, since it allows everyone an interesting experience, whether they pay or not. Paying customers get a fastpass, but that's about it. The latter method is a completely different matter, where it's often not told until you notice, after month of playing, that they keep you from experiencing the game whole when you are not willing to pay for it. It's like getting a trial account without being told that this is all you get (because usually you're sucked in by the promise of a free game). Yes, TANSTAAFL, but since free games exist, i.e. games of the first kind, it's not so clean cut.
One last thing: If you are against paying for fastpass, be aware that with most MMOs you get both: You pay, AND you grind.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Give the first hit for free" is a business model that has always worked well for drug dealers, so if this MMO is as addictive as they hope it should work well for them.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
I just recently started playing DDO only because they offered a free to play option. sure I am limited in content (short two races, limited character slots, not all content available) but I just wanted something different to try out without making a purchase and commitment. I am enjoying the occassional session with DDO without spending a dime. I still pay for my subscriptions to WoW and CoH (which I haven't played in months!) but I feel no pressure to spend any money in DDO. if I ever decided I liked it enough to want to expand the content, then I don't have a problem paying the subscription fee for a while. I think they are doing a pretty good job so far. I just wished they had mentioned the lack of access to two races with the Free to play option. they seemed to actually use those two races as a lure, to want you to play, then when you get all set and downloaded and logged in, nope you can't play them! that was my only complaint so far about the game. It felt like bait and switch.
Silkroad Online is free-to-play and relies on microtransactions so players can pay real cash to buy items in their item mall if they choose. The international version of the game is overloaded with gold-farming bots and player-leveling bots. The 35+ servers are almost always filled to capacity, and it can take hours to log in. When you finally do log in, you can often find herds of gold-farming bots running around an area, often times in sync with each other, grinding on mobs. A lot of players even run multi-client software so they can have 10-30 gold bots online at the same time while their main character grinds via bot software to level up. It becomes a real problem for players who actually want to play the game.
Let's hope the DDO setup they have works better than this.
Having a smoking section in a public restaurant is like having a peeing section in a public swimming pool.
It's "Mac" or "Macintosh" not MAC (unless your seriously suggesting something along the lines of porting DDO to run on a network card...)
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
...Turbine had done this to Asheron's Call 2 instead of killing it and screwing their players over. They released an expansion pack for it, Legions, and shortly after announced the end of that MMO. Talk about shady business practices.
Asheron's Call 2 was an excellent game, unlike DDO.
And in Europe?
Oh.
The moral of the required reading is we should accept Christianity through a cartoon instead of Satan through a board game. I guess Satan must be in the DDO marketing dept and God at Marvel in illustration otherwise this epic battle on the entertainment media couldn't be taking place. It's just too bad God dabbled with magic in the Narnia series because that really confuses the church's current message about sorcery being evil. Oh well we all make mistakes.
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the Doubloon Oceans on Puzzle Pirates yet.
A while back Puzzle Pirates set up a bunch of new servers with no subscription fee. Instead, they had a second currency. Besides Pieces of Eight, the standard currency, there was a new one called Doubloons.
On normal oceans, you could play for free with some restrictions, or you could subscribe and have all the restrictions lifted. On Doubloon oceans, you buy off those restrictions with Doubloons - some on a monthly basis, some on a 30-day-played basis (my 2-year-old character is about three weeks through his first "30-day-played" badge. I don't play often.) You can buy off only the restrictions you care about, or you can buy off everything, or you can even buy "super-badges" that give you more capabilities than you'd have normally on a subscriber ocean.
The trick is that you can convert PoE into Doubloons. And not at a fixed game rate, either - it's player-driven.
So let's say I play Puzzle Pirates for the fun of it, and don't care about all the subscriber features. I go out pirating, I make money, I buy doubloons off the market, I can get my badges.
Or, alternatively, let's say my time is valuable to me and I don't feel like grinding. I go blow $20 on doubloons, then trade them for a huge number of Pieces of Eight. Now I'm rich, and I can go buy the pretty clothes and furniture that I want.
Everyone wins! Including the publisher! Because, remember, at no point in this system can you actually create PoE with doubloons or vice-versa. It's always a trade. If a group of players want to spend $10 in doubloons on a bunch of high-level features, someone, somewhere has paid that $10.
Eve Online does something similar. Now, Eve is a subscription-based service, but you can also convert timecards into items called PLEXes. Pilot License Extensions. Each PLEX is a 30-day subscription, and PLEXes can be traded, at will, on the open market. So, again, if you don't want to pay any money for the game, you don't have to - make the money ingame, buy a PLEX, use the plex, repeat. As long as you can buy one PLEX every month, you're set! (You may have to subscribe for a few months to gear up your PLEX-making.)
Alternatively, if you want a small fleet of battleships, go buy some timecodes, turn into PLEXes, and sell. Lots of money, lots of battleships!
Everyone wins!
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
it would take a LOT of effort/money to recode the graphics engine at this point
Or alternatively you employ a competent software architect who doesn't choose to use DirectX thus tying your programme to a single OS.
Then it would take a LOT of effort/money to hire a competent software architect who doesn't choose to use DirectX to recode the graphics engine at this point.
One standard monthly fee for everyone regardless of customer needs and wants is socialism at best or communism at worst. Micro-transactions provide more value to the consumer through choice via "pay for what you want" instead of paying a flat fee and subsidizing everyone else via a flat fee. Ergo, micro-transactions are much more capitalistic in nature, and thus "better."
I played the final stress test/beta or whatever it was before the game shipped. It was decent, but not good as WoW. Has the game improved a lot?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
It's a pretty fun game, definatley worth checking out for free. I played a trial account over a year ago and came back to that same account when it went free with all my characters in tact. If you are a melee class, you pretty much hold the left mouse button and run at things and hit them. It's not compicated. The spell casters are a little more involved and if you are playing as a useful rogue, you just hide or throw things until there are traps to deal with. It's still fun and encourages diverse grouping. They made a nice little noob island named Korthos. It gets you into the basics of game play and has some fun quests leading up to a large dungeon up on a mountain, and of course there is a dragon involved. It's a fun game and lures me away from WoW when they are no raids to do. I cannot justify paying for 2 MMOs, and WoW still really is tops, but as long as it's free I'll probably keep playing this game for the time being.
For casual players, I see this as a nice pay-as-you-go alternative to a monthly subscription. If I'm not going to consume $15 of content in a month, I may as well only pay for what I'm going to use, when I'm going to use it. I also wouldn't feel obligated to play just because I'm paying monthly fees.
Cynicism, like dogmatism, can be an excuse for intellectual laziness. - Susan Shirk
I hate to promote an EA game, but a few months ago after deciding it was time for a new game I could play casually I stumbled across Battlefield Heroes which is a free, micro-transaction/ad-driven, browser-based (the launcher) shooter.
The advertising originally consisted of mock ads based on in-game art and themes (humorous) but more recently began to use real ads in a pretty non-disruptive way (launch screen/load screen). The micro-transactions can give players a indirect advantage by allowing them to gain XP faster (2X) or something they call VP faster (currency you use to buy health and other basics). So far the balance makes playing without XP or VP accelerators not feel like a disadvantage and the most noticeable difference between free and paying players would be custom clothing and other cosmetic extras (some of these items can be paid for using VP too, so free players are able to do some customizing too).
Players who don't have the extra income or aren't interested in paying for these non-essential extras really aren't at much of a disadvantage. Highly skilled players from either set (paying or non-paying) can compete evenly with other players of the same level. The idea seems to work and judging from the amount of blinged out players people don't seem to mind paying for a little vanity (or humor/or fun) to enjoy a past-time. I for one look forward to seeing more examples of balanced micro-transaction/in-game advertising based gaming overlords.
Quack, quack.
Seriously, this is what peeves me off about all these MMOs (I've played Lineage 2, WOW, and Warhammer Online - haven't played any MMO for months though), I have to pay for a box. If I'm pitching out 180 bucks a year for the game maybe, just maybe, they could not make me buy the client as if it was a standalone game that was worth anything the minute I decide to unsubscribe.
Sure, gold farmers could make new accounts more easily, BUT THEY ALREADY DO! Blizzard doesn't even charge for the client in parts of the world (China for example) but here you have to pay 40-50 bucks every 18 months or get left behind, that's on top of the sub.
So, this is a good move, not just because of the sub, but because I'm far more likely to even try it. I haven't tried AION and won't due to the box costs.
My one question about DDO is is there any anti-cheat spy programs? I don't necessarily object to all of these depending on what they do, but some of them are horrid (like the AION one they dumped for the North American release)?
So does this work on WINE on Linux or Mac, or is this Windoze only?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Printer & razor manufacturers have been doing this for years. And isn't this basically Apple's success story with iTunes, the cane toad of digital media players?
After reading this story on Ars (Slashdot is always days late), I tried out the free account system. Three things that really made me happy:
1. They never asked for a credit card. I just created an account like I was signing up for a forum.
2. The download was quick and painless (maxed-out my 25Mbit connection, was playing in 30 minutes).
3. I felt so free that I didn't even feel bad about not getting the chance to play it last night.
I've been itching to try one of these MMOs, but couldn't stomach the monthly fee (I don't often have lots of time to play, and I also tend to put a game down after a couple months, then pick it back up later). For me, a monthly fee would be wasted. I like this pricing structure because I won't be forced to pay for anything, but if I really like the game I could see myself making small purchases here and there. If I find I really like this, and get worried about spending too much, I still have the option to upgrade to the VIP account for the normal $15/month.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
They should do this with some of the other "dead" MMOs. I'd love to play Earth and Beyond again. Tabula Risa would have been a gold mine with this style. Granted, all games wouldn't work with this. Some do, and do it well. As other's have mentioned, Maple Story and Silk Road Online are some of the most successful MMO's to use this style, and they make a ton of money.
Please EA, bring back Earth and Beyond.
Another thing that made me happy was you earn store points with faction, and is per character. Existing character faction is also rewarded. Thus I was able to buy 2 content modules now using nothing but faction.
Regnum Online has already offered a free to play MMO for years now. Income is based on selling "premium" content to enhance play but not required to play.
In Anarchy Online, once you upgrade there is no going back. Good for lock-in I suppose but quite annoying to the players.
I think Funcom is actually losing money because of this, for I would upgrade a bunch of my other accounts temporarily just to get them set up a little bit better.
Being able to downgrade back to free is all kinds of awesomeness.
So true, yet... People in these kind of game want to be in the top 10.
Cynical or not, that is exactly why some games are built to make people spend their way to the top. Somebody want to be a top X player in a game where you can purchase power? Seriously: Duh.
Alternatives exist. Battlefield Heroes is free to play and spending cash give you nothing more than lots of fancy clothes with zero impact on gameplay. Or optionally a fixed and small XP boost that you can enjoy the game perfectly without.
I lost my sig.
The "Standard resolution" DNDO plays fine on an EeePC, and I like the fact that they added a native 1024x600 resolution to accomodate it.
I've been looking on the website and no where can I find the minimum hardware specs. I can how ever find the minimum specs for quests my home computer might not be able to take.
Has the old saint in his forest not yet heard of it? That God is dead?
> So, at a minimum you'd spend $6.56 a month for the Travian Plus feature plus +25% resource boosts,
> +10% offensive and defensive bonuses. That at first seems reasonable for running such a cool game,
> but I was averaging around $100 a month on gold because of NPC trading and instabuilding. My
> coworker had it worse because his two sons were playing and he was even worse with the
> instabuilding. His monthly Travian habit, including his two sons' costs were running him around
> $300/month. FOR A GAME!
"Working as intended", it seems like to me.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.