Tag: Runescap

Let's Talk Free To Play "Customers"


Today I wanted to talk free to play, primarily the base that makes up the players and customers, two terms I want to keep separated for the purpose of this article. Let’s take Lord of the Rings Online as an example. A player is someone who downloads the game for free, accumulates Turbine points using in-game rewards and not buying them, and makes it as far as he can before running out of free points, getting bored, and quitting. A customer is someone who pays, be it in any amount of Turbine points, or through the VIP system.

I used Lord of the Rings and not Runescape because Runescape free players are, in a way, customers. Although they don’t pay any money out of pocket, they view advertisements which, according to Jagex’s financial reports, made somewhere around 7% of their revenue in 2009, and have likely remained about the same since. Getting in free players is a financial incentive in itself to Jagex.

For the rest of you, however, I’m going to use the drug analogy. Your first hit is always free, because the goal is to get you hooked and going back for more. Going back to Lord of the Rings Online, my readings are sporadic, but from my understanding a player can get around level 30 buying quest packs (many of which are rather cheap) using only the Turbine points given as task rewards. By that point, your next inclination is likely “well that Turbine point card at Target is only ten bucks. Might as well buy one.” Of course you know where the addiction goes from there.

But the companies that make free to play games aren’t sinister drug dealers who want you hooked, they recognize that the players who pay will be footing the bill for the players who do not, so they offer incentives to dole up some money. Turbine offers free points for VIP members, others offer extra bag space, better loot, and higher experience for subscribing.

Like drug dealers, you have to learn to avoid the bad ones. There is a very fine line between incentives for subscribers and punishing free players. Years back I had a chance to talk to an ex-customer service rep (not here on MMO Fallout) for a Korean MMO whose player (not subscriber) numbers rivaled World of Warcraft’s. What I found most interesting was the company’s policy on free vs paying members. A lot of the time, paying members were allowed to cheat, farm gold, use bots, etc, while free players would be routinely banned for minor offences. The internal policy was that the people were paying, so why not let them do whatever they wanted? As for the free players, “screw em.” There would be many more to take their place.

Harsh, but I’ve been called rather unsympathetic for indifference towards a group I’ve referred to as “permanent freeloaders” in the past so not at all surprising. What you need to understand when entering a game with full resolve that you will never pay a dime, is that the company has minimal interest in your presence. Sure you might bring friends into the game and they might pay for some stuff, but your demands will be met with a deaf ear.

On games like Runescape, Champions Online, etc, I often hear the permanent freeloaders complain about being treated like wallets waiting to be opened, but why would you expect anything else? A grocery store doesn’t offer free samples because you look famished and they’d like to feed you, and a developer doesn’t offer up their game for free because they hope less people will pay and more will simply enjoy the game. At the end of the day, the company has to pay its employees, and they’ve found a way to do that but far more efficiently with the free to play system. Like I said with Dungeons and Dragons Online, going free pays off more.

One of MMO Fallout’s core principles runs around MMOs as like a relationship between the developer and player, and free to play just goes to further the analogy. Developers have realized over time that a great majority of customers need to see what they’re getting into before they want to saddle up and cash in, and this system is just the way to do that. To go even further, a good cash shop game is like a gorgeous person you meet at a public place. You talk, have some things in common, and decide to have dinner. Slowly, but surely, you get to know each other better and the relationship becomes solid and loving. Next thing you know, you’re buying your love that brand new 2011 Kia to go in the garage of the house you just bought together. This is the best way to form a long-lasting relationship.

Then you have folks like Astrum Nival (Allods Online) who approach you in a bar, drunk, and just start dry humping you and spilling martini all over your good clothing. When you push them away, they get angry and violent, and start shouting about how you should be privileged to even call for their notice, and how anyone else would be throwing themselves at them. Sure, they might get successful with one or two people, but none of the relationships will be long, they will definitely be expensive to those they sucker in, and the ordeal will probably just put their partners off of forming future relationships.

Are we still talking about video games?

Let’s Talk Free To Play “Customers”


Today I wanted to talk free to play, primarily the base that makes up the players and customers, two terms I want to keep separated for the purpose of this article. Let’s take Lord of the Rings Online as an example. A player is someone who downloads the game for free, accumulates Turbine points using in-game rewards and not buying them, and makes it as far as he can before running out of free points, getting bored, and quitting. A customer is someone who pays, be it in any amount of Turbine points, or through the VIP system.

I used Lord of the Rings and not Runescape because Runescape free players are, in a way, customers. Although they don’t pay any money out of pocket, they view advertisements which, according to Jagex’s financial reports, made somewhere around 7% of their revenue in 2009, and have likely remained about the same since. Getting in free players is a financial incentive in itself to Jagex.

For the rest of you, however, I’m going to use the drug analogy. Your first hit is always free, because the goal is to get you hooked and going back for more. Going back to Lord of the Rings Online, my readings are sporadic, but from my understanding a player can get around level 30 buying quest packs (many of which are rather cheap) using only the Turbine points given as task rewards. By that point, your next inclination is likely “well that Turbine point card at Target is only ten bucks. Might as well buy one.” Of course you know where the addiction goes from there.

But the companies that make free to play games aren’t sinister drug dealers who want you hooked, they recognize that the players who pay will be footing the bill for the players who do not, so they offer incentives to dole up some money. Turbine offers free points for VIP members, others offer extra bag space, better loot, and higher experience for subscribing.

Like drug dealers, you have to learn to avoid the bad ones. There is a very fine line between incentives for subscribers and punishing free players. Years back I had a chance to talk to an ex-customer service rep (not here on MMO Fallout) for a Korean MMO whose player (not subscriber) numbers rivaled World of Warcraft’s. What I found most interesting was the company’s policy on free vs paying members. A lot of the time, paying members were allowed to cheat, farm gold, use bots, etc, while free players would be routinely banned for minor offences. The internal policy was that the people were paying, so why not let them do whatever they wanted? As for the free players, “screw em.” There would be many more to take their place.

Harsh, but I’ve been called rather unsympathetic for indifference towards a group I’ve referred to as “permanent freeloaders” in the past so not at all surprising. What you need to understand when entering a game with full resolve that you will never pay a dime, is that the company has minimal interest in your presence. Sure you might bring friends into the game and they might pay for some stuff, but your demands will be met with a deaf ear.

On games like Runescape, Champions Online, etc, I often hear the permanent freeloaders complain about being treated like wallets waiting to be opened, but why would you expect anything else? A grocery store doesn’t offer free samples because you look famished and they’d like to feed you, and a developer doesn’t offer up their game for free because they hope less people will pay and more will simply enjoy the game. At the end of the day, the company has to pay its employees, and they’ve found a way to do that but far more efficiently with the free to play system. Like I said with Dungeons and Dragons Online, going free pays off more.

One of MMO Fallout’s core principles runs around MMOs as like a relationship between the developer and player, and free to play just goes to further the analogy. Developers have realized over time that a great majority of customers need to see what they’re getting into before they want to saddle up and cash in, and this system is just the way to do that. To go even further, a good cash shop game is like a gorgeous person you meet at a public place. You talk, have some things in common, and decide to have dinner. Slowly, but surely, you get to know each other better and the relationship becomes solid and loving. Next thing you know, you’re buying your love that brand new 2011 Kia to go in the garage of the house you just bought together. This is the best way to form a long-lasting relationship.

Then you have folks like Astrum Nival (Allods Online) who approach you in a bar, drunk, and just start dry humping you and spilling martini all over your good clothing. When you push them away, they get angry and violent, and start shouting about how you should be privileged to even call for their notice, and how anyone else would be throwing themselves at them. Sure, they might get successful with one or two people, but none of the relationships will be long, they will definitely be expensive to those they sucker in, and the ordeal will probably just put their partners off of forming future relationships.

Are we still talking about video games?

What Happened This Week: 5/1-5/14 Edition


I have a question for all of you who read this introductory paragraph. Have you ever rage-quit an MMO? I haven’t. I’ve quit more MMOs in the past than I can count, but they’ve never been out of a fit of rage. Single player games, yes, I’ve stopped playing because every time I played I wanted to smash my keyboard through the monitor, but for some reason I’ve never rage quit an MMO. Getting griefed by some loser in Meduli who is abusing bugs to pickpocket me and then jump onto buildings, just doesn’t get an emotional response from me.

I still remember the time I died in Runescape and lost almost everything I owned (I had invested all of my money into very high level gear for the time), and I stopped playing for about a week. Not out of anger, but I went back and started recuperating my losses, and eventually I got all of my gear back. I suppose my reaction is because, in MMOs, death is meaningful when you can lose everything on you, so for many of us it triggers a sympathetic response. In a single player game, you lose the time you spent from the last checkpoint, which simply triggers frustration at having to play through the same area or sit through the same cutscene over and over again until you progress.

1. What Did We Learn From the Sony Incident?

First of all, we learned that even people giving testimony to Congress aren’t to be trusted. The media took the story that Sony was running outdated software and ran with it like the Olympic torch. Turns out, Dr. Gene (the security expert) was merely parroting what he had heard in the media, without actually looking at Sony’s records. The servers were indeed running an up to date version of Apache. What Sony needs to do is come out and say “Yes, we had a firewall, yes we were running up to date versions of Apache” if they haven’t already.

The offer of identity protection was a good move, but will ultimately not be useful. No relevant credit card data was stolen, apart from the twelve thousand expired credit cards Sony had stockpiled on a database somewhere in the off-reaches of their systems. Sony’s stupid move in all of this was foremost trying to take the hackers head-on, but secondly placing regular data in plain text. If they hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t be hearing rumors of passwords being in plain text, or credit card data being unencrypted. It simply wouldn’t be as present.

2. So What’s The News With Lineage 2?

The announcement that Lineage was shutting down in the west was rather abrupt to those of us who don’t play, to be honest the game falls into the system of only appearing in the media when NCsoft releases their financial reports to tell us how great their games are doing in Korea. Make no word about it, Lineage is still going very strong in the east, and in 2010 actually outperformed Lineage 2 by a full 10% of NCsoft’s total income. The game made up 30% of NCsoft’s income in 2010 (20% Lineage 2, 44% Aion, 2% City of Heroes and Guild Wars respectively). Lineage, to my understanding, didn’t even have official support in the west for 64-bit operating systems until late 2010.

Lineage 2 is still active according to several active players I discussed the game with, but with biases the way they are, I have the feeling Lineage II will be next on the chopping block for the west, possibly coinciding with the release of Lineage III. I’m not one for calling death, but this is NCsoft we’re talking about, they don’t take under-performance lightly.

So, I say…Keep playing Lineage 2. The game will die one day, so why not spend the time until then having fun instead of worrying about when the time will come?

3. Star Wars Galaxies Server Mergers

This one made me chuckle. Looking back at my previous article, I had to laugh thinking about how frustrated I was that I couldn’t get any information regarding the Galaxies server transfers, due to the random DDOS attacks that preempted Sony’s database being hacked and taken offline for the better part of the month.

Now that that debate is over, we can get back to the important discussion, namely how many servers will shut down when Sony finishes the free transfer system. My bet is on at least half, so about six servers if Sony does do a server merger, which likely depends on how the population shifts during the free transfer phase.

4. NCsoft Bribing Asmodians

To assist in the creation and leveling of Asmodian characters, players on selected servers with an Asmodian, level 10 or higher, will receive a huge supply of Berdin’s Amulets. Berdin’s Amulets deliver a 50% additional EXP gain from hunting, gathering and crafting. The effect lasts one hour, with a one hour cooldown after activation.

In short: Not enough Asmodian players at max level participating in PvP on select servers, Elyos players taking too much control. This is one of the big problems 2-faction MMOs have, is that generally one side steamrolls the other, causing the losing side’s members to leave, meaning an even bigger steamrolling on the following round of action. In a game like Aion, being on the losing side of faction warfare can mean never having access to certain content simply because your side does not have control over territory.

In addition to giving exp incentives for leveling up, Aion is allowing Asmodians on certain servers access to instances otherwise inaccessible due to the aforementioned fortress control. Players who do control fortresses will also be awarded greater than players on the Elyos side, as an extra incentive for participating, and succeeding, in turning the tide. You can read it all here.

5. Runescape Has The Best RP: Virtual Mafia Complete With Dirty Cops

Back in a time before research (2009), Jagex introduced virtual game pieces for Runescape, items in-game that allowed for community driven events, including stopwatches, tickers, and more importantly, dice. The introduction of dice, of course, lead to a Runescape version of craps. And inevitably, the online community being what the online community is, groups sprang up using this to scam from players. At the same time, legitimate gambling rings formed to allow for a safer environment to play.

Where there is gambling, however, there is a mafia behind the scenes shooting your friend Joey because he had sex with the don’s daughter. This may be my extra-strength medication talking, but I am fascinated by the idea of a mafia running a questionably legitimate (according to the game rules, not calling the outfit a scam), run by teenagers. If you head over to this thread, there is allegedly a clan on Runescape that uses a single world for dice games, and has a player mod either in the clan or on its payroll to mute the accounts of competing clans on their world.

If that isn’t brilliant, my name is Farmer Joe. Isn’t this the Valhalla of role playing? Here you have a virtual form of gambling, secretly run by the mafia, using corrupt police to virtually cut out the tongues of the competition. The only way this could be more extreme is if Jagex allows money to be transported in large quantities via suitcase, a Runescape version of crack cocaine for the dicing mafia to deal, and the reintroduction of player-vs-player worlds so the mafia could literally murder their competition. Or if the aforementioned teenage mafia don actually murdered his competition, although I can’t say I condone such conduct. This is the first thing that popped to mind when thinking MMO mafia:

What’s next? Runescape hookers? Already existent, just check a free to play world near a bank. In case you’re thinking about it, don’t. I already have the Runescape mafia on my payroll. You’d be surprised what those Runescapers will agree to if you package those chocolate coins with the foil wrapping and tell them it’s “rl geepee.”

That’s all for this week. Tune in next time, when I’ll be showcasing a thing. Better yet, I’ll be showcasing a thing in a place.

More Bots In Runescape: High Level Edition


It’s easy to be indifferent towards gold farmers when they aren’t affecting your choice of spots, so for boss hunters and high level NPC farmers in Runescape, brushing off the effects of gold farmers is a lot harder once those same bots start overrunning your high level training areas, as seen in the above video.

When a company like Jagex has the kind of profits, again like Jagex (almost $60 million annually, and that’s profit), you’d think hiring a dedicated bot busting team would be in the cards. But again, Jagex appears to have the same apathy toward combating bots that I have toward paying my auto-loan.

Runescape: Once Again, Filled With Gold Farmers…


The video above showcases just one of the many sites in Runescape where botters (almost all of them gold farmers) are farming a mini-game. Now, in this particular mini-game, players must run through a maze, avoiding the creatures that roam it, otherwise they are teleported back to the start. A Splinter Cell stealth-style game. One of the creatures, as noted in the video, became stuck in place, making the maze impossible to complete. That, of course, does not stop the mass of bots from trying to force their way through anyway.

History repeats itself, and much like last time (2007), Jagex will likely not act until the gold farmers start hitting them where it hurts: The bank. A major point I’ve always thrown forward is that the 2007 trade restriction updates were put into place in retaliation not against botting, but against credit card fraud: Gold farmers using stolen credit cards to pay for membership. I’m not going to speculate on how the bots are paying for their membership this time, but I find it unlikely they are suddenly going legitimate.

So, your move Jagex.

Runescape: No, We Don't Vet Our Moderators


I’ve been involved in more player moderator/volunteer positions with online games than I can count, and one aspect that has always remained the same is the expectation of involvement. If a player asks for help and I ignore them, I stood to be fired. If there was a player cheating and I did nothing about it, I stood to be fired. If a player was harassing other players, and I didn’t mute him, I stood to be fired. If I acted like an idiot, or made false statements, I stood to be fired. Just because I wasn’t getting paid, didn’t mean I didn’t have some expectation of reliability and professionalism.

Cue in Runescape, where I’ve always said Jagex reads their community about as well as I can read a book sitting in a chair sculpted out of lava. Jagex has taken the laid back approach of “well you are just players so if you don’t want to help others, you don’t have to.” As expected, this has simply lead to a large number of moderators who accept the position just for the fancy crown next to their name in chat, or simply to mute people they don’t like (I should note that the latter generally do not last long as moderators).

While Jagex does a decent job of culling corrupt moderators, what they should be focusing on is the indifference aspect. If a moderator is present when a player is breaking the rules, and does not report them, they should be removed. Moderators who are inactive for a period of time should also be removed. I specifically left out answering questions because with how many players are on at any given time, getting an answer from players should not be difficult.

I am not suggesting that player moderators should be forced to go hunting for rule breakers, but rather just deal with them as they appear. I agree with the sentiment that player moderators are just players, but not to the extent that they can just ignore a problem as a normal player might. And if you don’t want to enforce the rules when you see them being broken, there is also a simple answer: Don’t accept the invitation when you receive it.

It’s really not that difficult.

Runescape: No, We Don’t Vet Our Moderators


I’ve been involved in more player moderator/volunteer positions with online games than I can count, and one aspect that has always remained the same is the expectation of involvement. If a player asks for help and I ignore them, I stood to be fired. If there was a player cheating and I did nothing about it, I stood to be fired. If a player was harassing other players, and I didn’t mute him, I stood to be fired. If I acted like an idiot, or made false statements, I stood to be fired. Just because I wasn’t getting paid, didn’t mean I didn’t have some expectation of reliability and professionalism.

Cue in Runescape, where I’ve always said Jagex reads their community about as well as I can read a book sitting in a chair sculpted out of lava. Jagex has taken the laid back approach of “well you are just players so if you don’t want to help others, you don’t have to.” As expected, this has simply lead to a large number of moderators who accept the position just for the fancy crown next to their name in chat, or simply to mute people they don’t like (I should note that the latter generally do not last long as moderators).

While Jagex does a decent job of culling corrupt moderators, what they should be focusing on is the indifference aspect. If a moderator is present when a player is breaking the rules, and does not report them, they should be removed. Moderators who are inactive for a period of time should also be removed. I specifically left out answering questions because with how many players are on at any given time, getting an answer from players should not be difficult.

I am not suggesting that player moderators should be forced to go hunting for rule breakers, but rather just deal with them as they appear. I agree with the sentiment that player moderators are just players, but not to the extent that they can just ignore a problem as a normal player might. And if you don’t want to enforce the rules when you see them being broken, there is also a simple answer: Don’t accept the invitation when you receive it.

It’s really not that difficult.

April Fool's 2011 Roundup


April Fool’s is one of my favorite days of the year, because I love seeing what jokes companies will come up with, my personal favorite being Google’s yearly jokes. Today isn’t even over, and I think the award for the best joke goes to ArenaNet with Guild Wars, who not only created a trailer and page for the Commando class, but added in an entire mini-game to Guild Wars as a “preview.”

Here is an ongoing roundup of today’s jokes, good and bad.

April Fool’s 2011 Roundup


April Fool’s is one of my favorite days of the year, because I love seeing what jokes companies will come up with, my personal favorite being Google’s yearly jokes. Today isn’t even over, and I think the award for the best joke goes to ArenaNet with Guild Wars, who not only created a trailer and page for the Commando class, but added in an entire mini-game to Guild Wars as a “preview.”

Here is an ongoing roundup of today’s jokes, good and bad.

Jagex: Stellar Dawn? No, Transformers!


Jagex is an inspiration of hope in the MMO genre. Born out of a side project by Andrew Gower, Runescape has since gone on to become the most popular free to play MMO gracing our internets, crafting a membership system that not only gave an enormous amount of content for a low price, but also creating a free to play portion that not only continues to evolve, but offers a safe haven for men of questionable age to become the sexy seventeen year old girl looking for a relationship of questionable legality with a studly rich boyfriend, that they’ve always dreamed of being. In the past few years, Jagex became publisher for War of Legends, an Evony-style game, became their own mini-game developer (FunOrb), bought the Iphone game Undercroft, and

Now, for those of you keeping track, Jagex has been in development of Stellar Dawn, originally Mechscape, originally announced in 2008 for a 2009 release, followed by a 2010 release, with our latest news being a 2011 release. Considering these delays, I noted the absurdity that Jagex was working on a third MMO, an untitled fantasy title that is not Runescape 2. Granted, the FunOrb team hasn’t put out a new game since September 2010, so Jagex does have some resources that could be thrown onto a fourth mmo, right?

Yes, I said fourth MMO, if you hadn’t discerned such from the title. MCV is reporting that Jagex has entered into a deal with Hasbro to make Transformers into an MMO for release when? 2012, according to the report. Mark Gerhard was quoted saying:

“There is a huge appetite for an online Transformers game and we will utilise every bit of our development and publishing expertise to deliver a dynamic and action-packed game that Transformers fans will find irresistible.”

More on the Transformer MMO’s delay to 2014 when it comes…and assuming MMO Fallout is still online then.