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Continue reading “Fractured Online Fractures Off Its Subscription, Going F2P”
Tag: F2p
Naraka: Bladepoint Goes F2P
By The Way, Rift Is Free Today
One of the few remaining pillars of subscription-only MMO gaming has fallen today, with Rift officially going free to play. Offering “no trials, no tricks, no traps,” Rift free to play drops the required subscription and opens up all of the leveling experience free of charge. Players are able to purchase credits to buy mounts, services, convenience items, and more: nearly five thousand items to choose from. Even if you choose not to throw some real money in, you can always partake in the delights of the cash shop through buying REX, which can be consumed for cash shop currency.
Today also marks the launch of patch 2.3, bringing a new zone for max level players.
(Source: Rift)
Warhammer Online: Costs Haven't Synced For Free To Play
Warhammer Online’s fourth birthday has come and gone, and Massively.com has quite an interesting interview with Producer James Casey about the life of Warhammer, past, present, and future. Casey also talks about Warhammer’s MOBA brother, Wrath of Heroes, and how the development teams for both games have been kept complimentary, but separate. Finally, Casey answers the question many of us have been asking for a good while: Why hasn’t Warhammer Online gone free? My guess has always come down to cost, and from Casey’s reply, I wasn’t wrong:
We’ve investigated this option in the past, but the costs and changes needed to make it happen in a satisfactorily way haven’t synced up yet.
Transitioning a game to free to play is incredibly expensive and, in the case of games like Earthrise and Gods & Heroes (and now Warhammer), is simply out of the question.
(Source: Massively.com)
Warhammer Online: Costs Haven’t Synced For Free To Play
Warhammer Online’s fourth birthday has come and gone, and Massively.com has quite an interesting interview with Producer James Casey about the life of Warhammer, past, present, and future. Casey also talks about Warhammer’s MOBA brother, Wrath of Heroes, and how the development teams for both games have been kept complimentary, but separate. Finally, Casey answers the question many of us have been asking for a good while: Why hasn’t Warhammer Online gone free? My guess has always come down to cost, and from Casey’s reply, I wasn’t wrong:
We’ve investigated this option in the past, but the costs and changes needed to make it happen in a satisfactorily way haven’t synced up yet.
Transitioning a game to free to play is incredibly expensive and, in the case of games like Earthrise and Gods & Heroes (and now Warhammer), is simply out of the question.
(Source: Massively.com)
Gameglobe Trailer: Create Your Own Worlds
Gameglobe is an upcoming free to play MMO by Square Enix. Published by Bigpoint Entertainment, Gameglobe will be a free to play MMO that tasks players with creating fun and interactive levels for others to play through, or simply playing through the levels that others have created. The game is currently in closed beta, and the short teaser trailer below gives a few small glimpses of action.
More information to come.
The Technical Issues Are A Lie: Codemasters Reveals
I’ve been speculating for a while now that there is more to this delay of Lord of the Rings Online in Europe than Codemasters has been explaining. On my earlier articles, I noted my thoughts that Turbine had something to do with the delays, although my assumption that Turbine was attempting to take back LOTRO in Europe was obviously incorrect. Codemasters’ General Manager David Solari put out a notice today that the issues were not, in fact, technical, and that Codemasters was having contractual issues that were delaying the launch of LOTRO F2P EU.
“This is the reason why we have been unable to provide you with any substantial information as to when we will go Free-to-Play, despite the desire to share this with you.
Unfortunately a contract was required in order to go Free-to-Play and this has taken much longer to conclude than expected.”
My money says this can be traced back to money, namely how much Turbine wanted in royalties and how much Codemasters wanted to pay under the new contract. Either way, the contract has been concluded, and Codemasters is on their way to a full free to play launch.
We can confirm the launch is imminent and we should be able to announce the dates later this week/early next week.
You can read the rest of Solari’s comments at the above link. More on Lord of the Rings Online as it appears.
Warhammer Online: Not Going F2P
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.”
NCsoft: Exteel is Shutting Down This September
Exteel was something of an experimental move by NCsoft into the free to play cash shop market, and launched back in December 2007 to the fanfare of…something. As far as fanfare goes, Exteel was one of the games I never actually bothered looking up, considering it was developed and published by NCsoft. Not unlike Dungeon Runners, the game hasn’t made much news since its launch, and the announcement of it shutting down just begged the question: Exteel was still running?
That being said, on September 1st, Exteel will shut down because, as it turns out, the robot fighting cash shop MMO is not “financially viable.” In August, players should expect more information as to planned compensation for players, although if past history is anything to look at, players will likely receive keys to City of Heroes, Guild Wars, and Lineage, along with game time for each respective title (I know that is what I received when Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault shut down).
Until then, enjoy the game while you can.
Fusion Fall: Free To Play April 19th
Last December, I talked briefly about Cartoon Network’s MMO, Fusion Fall. For the fact that Cartoon Network boasted seven million registered players, I noted that the line between registered and active was thick, in the case of public relations, thick enough that if a company is showing off registered users compared to active users, all signs point towards the active population not being as high as they would like. Take Runescape for instance, that has over one hundred million accounts created, but approximately six million active, over one million of those being paying members. Active users are always a fraction of the total accounts even on free to play games because, if what Dungeon Runners told us is any indication, a sizable number don’t even finish downloading the game before they quit.
Since I’ve posted that article up, I’ve had people asking the same question: When exactly is Free Realms going free to play, and up until now I haven’t been able to give much of an answer other than “beats me.” Although the announcement was made back in November, there has been a Duke Nukem style of “when it’s done” coming from the Fusion Fall development team. According to Massively, however, the date will be April 19th, when all of Fusion Fall opens up for free.
Fusion Fall is a fun game that, sadly, advertised to an age group that does not have the resources nor the means (for the most part) to pay for monthly fees, even if they are only five dollars. How Fusion Fall expects to fund itself is unclear at this time, but I would not be surprised to see in-game advertising as part of the deal.
More on Fusion Fall as it appears.
MMO Fallout 