Tag: Free to Play

Rift F2P? Over Scott Hartsman’s Dead Body


Will Rift eventually become free to play? No one can say for sure. As long as Scott Hartsman has a say, however, anyone who wants to play the MMO will have to pay up. In an interview with Eurogamer, Scott Hartsman of Trion stated that Rift is still growing, and that there are absolutely no plans to change face and make the game free. After all, the game is so pupillary, why would they reduce to 85% of the community (ala the 85/10/5 rule) paying nothing?

“One of the assumptions people make is you can just take a game and throw a switch and change the model. For starters, you’d have to decide that that would be a good thing, and I do not think it would be – that would be a fairly large net negative for Rift and Rift community.”

Sorry, folks! If you want to get into Rift, why not take advantage of Trion’s rather aggressive sales strategy? The game is on sale very cheap, very often.

Earthrise Moving To Free To Play: December 1st


Earthrise is one of those MMOs that journalists (or myself) look at and cringe. We’d love to see it succeed, because we support indie developers, but since we can’t cherry pick the news coming out of the title to put it in a better light without compromising our integrity, the end result is the perception of a group of writers forming a circle and kicking the company to death. On the other hand, my biggest problem with such MMOs is when the developer charges premium rates for a product that is not, by any means, premium quality. Look at Runescape, which could never have gotten away with a $15 monthly subscription back in the old days when it looked like this.

Then again, I consider any announcement of free to play to be a good thing, and that is exactly what we are here to discuss. Masthead Studios announced that Earthrise will be making the big dip into free this December. The actual transition does not take place until early next year, the December 1st date is for current and former players who had already purchased a copy of the game to play for free.

“The free-to-play model will offer convenience for players, it will not be ‘pay to win’ with items that ruin the balance of the game.”

The team plans to roll out the free to play system in a manner in which players can access without the servers crashing, and rather than opening the floodgates will be allowing players in intervals.

“Meanwhile Earthrise will be used as a test for the new free-2-play model and Masthead will limit the creation of new accounts. Invitations will be sent to selected new players and a new sign-up option will be provided. All existing subscribers will receive a number of invitations to bring their friends in the game. “

Splitting Everquest 2 Services Bad Idea, Merging In December


Let’s be honest, who among us did not see this service merger coming? Back when Sony announced Everquest 2 Extended, and how the game would be its own product split from Everquest 2, I questioned how long it would be before the Everquest 2 community either filtered into the service or filtered out completely, and Sony merged the two. Dave Georgeson states that this is due to Sony reviewing their other free to play games, but the factor of developing two separate versions of the same game must have had some factor.

As a result, EQ2X will be updated to bring gold subscription in line with what live players expect, losing restrictions on classes and races. Silver is being reduced to $5 from $10. Platinum, the $200 yearly membership, will be discontinued while anyone still with time left will live out the rest of their paid time without automatic renewal. In a surprising move, Georgeson revealed that power items will be removed from the cash shop. Potions, Rez scrolls, mastercrafted gear, etc, and a vote will be taken with the community as to how, or rather if, these items will be reintroduced.

This is great for people who have allowed their Everquest 2 subscriptions to lapse, but didn’t want to pay the money to transfer to Freeport and did not want to create a new character and start new. Everquest 2 changes to free to play in early December.

Atari: Star Trek Online Free To Play? Over Our Dead Bodies


Atari and I have never been on the best of terms.

 I believe I referred to Atari on a website that is not MMO Fallout, as an empty shell of a company that not only couldn’t keep itself on the NASDAQ stock listing, had a failed European branch, and has undergone more cosmetic surgery to change face than any other company in the business. Despite being relegated to the position of publisher for any notable title over the past decade, Atari has been downsized to the elderly man who keeps talking about his youth, and he buys up the younger crowd so he can live through them, even though his limbs are falling off from years of mistreatment.

Turns out John Smedley wasn’t the only creator desiring free to play, cut back by an unseen foe. In an interview, Cryptic’s Executive Producer on Star Trek Online Stephen D’Angelo stated that,  “We’ve always wanted the game to be free-to-play,” he says, “in fact we tried to make it free-to-play at the original launch, but our publisher [Atari] didn’t want us doing that so we didn’t do that.” You mean to tell me I could have obtained the entire Original Series cosmetic series without buying multiple copies of the game? What a kick in the teeth.

Of course Cryptic shares no blame in this, after all they were an owned subsidiary of Atari at the time and what Atari said was law. The article goes on to talk a bit about how Cryptic is handling the free to play switch, drastically different than the Champions Online conversion which was met with “mixed results,” according to the article.

Atari publicly dumped Cryptic Studios earlier this year, selling the studio to Perfect World Entertainment. The game is set to switch to free to play in January 2012.

DC Universe: Apparently Subscribers Wanted Priority Login


I have an itching feeling that the super servers for DC Universe were envisioned, developed, and either implemented or too far along to cancel when Sony received the green light to take the game free to play, because as Crimecraft has shown us: Merging servers to accommodate the subscriber population will cause all hell to break loose when the traffic suddenly rises 1000% (according to John Smedley) and the servers buckle like a cheap TV dinner tray. Luckily, Sony has been working around the clock to beef up the megaserver performance to accomodate more simultaneous players, and while European players have been having a bit more luck with open server slots, North American players are being subjected to constant server queues.

Not to mention, subscribers weren’t exactly happy that they were being forced to wait in the same line as their new found allies and opponents. Sorry, free players, but login priority for paying players is hardly newsworthy. On the plus side, if you want priority login, all it takes is a one time payment of five bucks. In an update rolled out, Sony added server queue priority for premium and legendary players, with legendary receiving the fastest queue time.

DC Universe’s Halloween event (spooktacular) has been extended until November 14th due to server issues.

  • Priority Queueing for Legendary and Premium players is now available.
  • Legendary Players will have the fastest queue time.

Free To Play Tuesday: Rhyming Title Edition


Welcome to November, everyone. Now if you are following the free to play mashup, as I do, you know that the market is getting a lot more congested in quarter 4 of 2011. We’ve already seen the free to play conversions of City of Heroes, Fallen Earth last month, and today sees the extended downtime of DC Universe as Superman prepares to turn to capitalism. When the servers come back online, players will be able to dive in and be horribly camped and murdered by players who are at max level and have been playing since launch. Enjoy!

Of course I kid, not that you won’t get slaughtered if you choose the player vs player server. Lineage II has also fully announced its switch to free to play, and from what NCsoft has announced, appears to be one of the most free games so far to don the term “free to play.” Players are able to buy vanity items, convenience items, and premium packs. Otherwise, all content is available for free. Expect more news later this year.

Makes you wish Star Wars Galaxies went free to play, doesn’t it?

Important: Final Fantasy XIV Subscriptions Start Soon


It’s been ten long months since someone at Square Enix restructured the Final Fantasy XIV team with the human resources equivalent of a carpet bomb, and since then the game has arguably come a long way, both in the huge number of updates bringing in new content, much needed content, fixing the old, purging the bad (physical levels?) and a new way of thinking for the FFXIV team. Unfortunately for us, the time we all knew was coming has shown is ugly head: The free period of Final Fantasy XIV will be coming to a close.

In a new lodestone, President Yoichi Wada announced that the transition will come in late November or early December of this year 2012. But hey, anyone who has been with FFXIV since the beginning has had a full year to play for free. Unless you are me, who adopted early and thanks to my already slow leveling process managed to get three skills above level ten. More importantly, as any person who bought the game should question, what about the subscriptions we still had to sign up to when the game started?

Anyone who has played FINAL FANTASY XIV at any time since its release is already in possession of a FINAL FANTASY XIV service account. These accounts are set to renew their subscriptions automatically, barring deactivation by the account holder. Therefore, if we were to begin regular subscription billings for all existing contracts, players who will not see this announcement or who may not currently wish to pay subscription fees would automatically begin to be charged for their accounts. To avoid this, we have decided to first suspend all automated renewals for service accounts. Only account holders who have agreed to reactivate the automated renewal system will be billed.

That’s generous of them. Final Fantasy has had a year of player dropoff, making for a lot of people who stopped playing and probably don’t follow the game anymore. You can read the entire announcement, as well as download a few documents outlining the team’s plans for the future.

Warhammer Online Isn’t Going Free To Play


I’m sure a lot of people expect me to do the usual poking of fun at Mythic over Warhammer Online, and truth be told I have enough content to fill more than just an introductory and self-parodying paragraph. So for the sake of getting to the point, I will not be referring to Warhammer as “boring crap,” nor will I make a joke about Mythic apparently not seeing the worth in players investing in the MMO, apparently even if that investment is absolutely nothing. And for once, I will stop inciting Mark Jacobs.

VP Eugene Evans over at Bioware Mythic wants the world to know that Warhammer Online is alive and still fighting for survival, and much like the steak supply in a house full of vegetarians, isn’t going anywhere. Evans stated that subscriptions on Warhammer Online have actually risen since the announcement of the free to play MOBA. That being said, if players want Warhammer for free, they’re going to have to turn to Wrath of Heroes. Warhammer, according to Mythic, has no intention on shutting down, nor does it have any intention on going free.

“We also think this is a better approach. You know, how do you make it more accessible? How do you make it a fun experience out of the door? So we’re really starting almost from the ground-up but having the benefit of being able to draw on everything we’ve learned from producing Warhammer Online.”

Since today has seen some conspiracy theories, let’s take a guess on the intention behind Warhammer never going free to play. It’s a successful business move, and if WAR needs anything it’s a bigger community, so who is behind it? Does the team really think that keeping the subscription is best, or does this have to do with EA’s refusal to move their other MMOs into the free to play realm?

Warhammer Online Isn't Going Free To Play


I’m sure a lot of people expect me to do the usual poking of fun at Mythic over Warhammer Online, and truth be told I have enough content to fill more than just an introductory and self-parodying paragraph. So for the sake of getting to the point, I will not be referring to Warhammer as “boring crap,” nor will I make a joke about Mythic apparently not seeing the worth in players investing in the MMO, apparently even if that investment is absolutely nothing. And for once, I will stop inciting Mark Jacobs.

VP Eugene Evans over at Bioware Mythic wants the world to know that Warhammer Online is alive and still fighting for survival, and much like the steak supply in a house full of vegetarians, isn’t going anywhere. Evans stated that subscriptions on Warhammer Online have actually risen since the announcement of the free to play MOBA. That being said, if players want Warhammer for free, they’re going to have to turn to Wrath of Heroes. Warhammer, according to Mythic, has no intention on shutting down, nor does it have any intention on going free.

“We also think this is a better approach. You know, how do you make it more accessible? How do you make it a fun experience out of the door? So we’re really starting almost from the ground-up but having the benefit of being able to draw on everything we’ve learned from producing Warhammer Online.”

Since today has seen some conspiracy theories, let’s take a guess on the intention behind Warhammer never going free to play. It’s a successful business move, and if WAR needs anything it’s a bigger community, so who is behind it? Does the team really think that keeping the subscription is best, or does this have to do with EA’s refusal to move their other MMOs into the free to play realm?

Fallen Earth Free to Play Today


About an hour and a half ago, Fallen Earth came down to begin the process if integrating a new patch. On a less relevant note, today also marks the transition of Fallen Earth to free to play. GamersFirst predicts five hours of downtime, although players should anticipate heavy server load once the game comes back online. G1 acknowledges this inevitable issue, and has delayed world events until server stability can be dealt with. You can check out the announcement at Fallen Eath’s website, as well as read the patch notes and get acquainted with the new facets of free playing.

The server went down around 8am PST, or 11am EST, or 4pm GMT. Until then, you can make sure that your Fallen Earth account has been properly merged to GamersFirst service. You can do so by following this page.