Join any internet discussion on Warhammer Online, outside of the realm of Warhammer Online’s forums, and odds are someone will eventually ask “when is Warhammer Online going free to play?” or something of the like. Despite Mythic’s claims that Warhammer Online is still profitable, there has been a vocal push to the game expanding the endless demo (tier 1) to the entirety of the game, supported by expansion packs.
Well, in a Ten Ton Hammer interview, Mythic producer Carrie Gouskos wants to be clear that WAR is not going free to play, at least not in the short term.
Ten Ton Hammer: Looking at the RvR pack and how it is being offered, the big question is why you’re sticking with subscription when everybody and their brother is going free-to-play right now? What’s the thought process behind that?
Carrie’s answer conveyed what a lot of players fear on such a change:
One of the big things that came up with free-to-play was that in order for it to work in a RvR game, you have to consider monetizing the power, such as the weapons, armor, and things like that. This is really scary because that is something that I don’t think players embrace. If you look at MMOGs that are free-to-play, a lot of people approach it as if you spend a lot of time or spend some money, you can get it. I think that works for a lot of things, but when it’s power, then it gets into fuzzy territory. With the focus that we have on RvR, it seems that it might not work.
We’ve definitely made some changes to the game’s economy this year. If we ever go into free-to-play, that would help us do that. But, it’s not where our focus was.
Thank you. Don’t get me wrong. We do have some vanity stuff that we’ve looked at and said if players want to buy it, that might be something we’ll make available. But power is really, really scary. And that’s the only thing that would be worth anything.
For a few minutes, I couldn’t understand why this sounded so familiar. I mean, it’s not like it’s possible to have a free to play option, without breaking your promise on changing the player’s subscriptions, right?
“As I said in that interview, we will not be changing your subscription model. We’ve heard you folks loud and clear that you do not want items with stats introduced, you don’t want players buying their way to power, etc. Your world will stay the way it has been and we will continue to support it with new content, items, etc.”
MMO Fallout 