Posts with tag free-to-play

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, we're taking a trip through the first 20 levels of the game, which are now eternal. The important thing to remember about rolling a mage is that you've made the right choice; congratulations.

Between the newly adopted unending demo, the extended Recruit-a-Friend promotion, and the freshly bargain-priced WoW/The Burning Crusade bundle, it seems Blizzard is making a concerted effort to woo new players. And from my limited viewpoint, it seems to be working.

I have a brother, a year and some change younger than me, who doesn't live near me. This sucks, because he and I have absolutely everything in common. We grew up taking turns watching each other play Shining Force, or designing Dungeons & Dragons campaigns to force each other to play through, but then college, family, and career separated us. I'm here in Las Vegas playing copious amounts of video games and ignoring my kids, and he's at Purdue, working on his doctorate and just generally making me ashamed of the waste my life has become. Naturally, I've been trying for years to drag him down to my level. Thus far he's resisted, but when I notified him of these new opportunities to play the game on the cheap, he finally took the plunge.

And rolled a warrior.

Sigh.

Oh well. At least it wasn't a warlock, right?

Welcome! It's a good day to be one of the few remaining human beings who isn't playing World of Warcraft. While previously players who set up a new trial account were limited by 14 days of playtime and a level cap, Blizzard announced today that players on any trial account are able to play the game forever for free. The catch, of course, is that players are capped at level 20 until they upgrade. You can try out any of the races and classes available up through The Burning Crusade expansion, including the blood elves and draenei, with no time limit and no limit on characters created.

If you do get the hankering for more WoW thanks to the trial, you can get the digital Battle Chest, which includes classic WoW and The Burning Crusade, for $19.99 (as soon as the Blizzard site works again, anyway).

Trying out WoW for the first time with one of these trials? Have a friend who's just starting out and needs a push in the right direction? Check out WoW Rookie, our resource for new or casual players, with topics like:

• Turn WoW into quality time by playing with a partner
• Pick the class that's right for you
• Learn how to run dungeons with groups

For a full list of the restrictions placed on endless trial accounts, check after the break.

It seems that every new MMORPG wants to bill itself as a "WoW killer." From Lord of the Rings Online to Age of Conan to (most recently) RIFT, everyone wants a piece of the most popular subscription-based MMORPG of all time.

To date, World of Warcraft has weathered the competition. Its subscriber numbers have reached an all-time high (now over 12 million), with its latest Cataclysm expansion selling nearly 5 million copies in the first month alone. The game should remain popular and successful for years to come. Still, even Blizzard admits: It can't stay on top forever.

So what happens when the game starts losing a significant amount of its subscriber base? If what happened to Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online is any clue, World of Warcraft might move to a free-to-play model. Since switching to free-to-play, both of Turbine's games added subscribers and increased revenues.

This past weekend, I sat in on the free-to-play MMO panel held at the PAX East 2011 conference in Boston. Afterward, I caught up with Robert Ferrari, VP of Publishing and Business Development for Sanrio Digital (Hello Kitty Online), to discuss WoW. We discussed the free-to-play industry and whether or not World of Warcraft could eventually find a place in it.

"WoW has to be looking at a free-to-play model currently," Ferrari theorized.

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

Lord of the Rings Online went free-to-play. "Free" is a questionable term, since they charge you for a fee for features you can technically live without but are still fairly important; things such as the gold cap, the ability to gain rested XP, and certain instances and PvP options require a fee. You get an enhanced version slightly above a trial, but you are still limited in what you can do in the free-to-play version of the game.

While playing a game, I want to play the whole game, have the entire experience, and not feel as if I have been shortchanged by being on a limited version. Personally having purchased some of the Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age DLC, I would still have to pay for the added functionality. Not being able to fully advance my character and see large amounts of content would irritate me more than the cost would. Not being allowed to make use of content would make me feel like I was missing out.

I want the choice of whether or not I do this instance, raid, or battleground. Could you imagine attempting to zone into Icecrown Citadel and seeing a message that says, "Requires a V.I.P. membership"? WoW has sold us a few items for extra money that are not required, but not having a Lil' XT or a sparkle pony doesn't affect your game functionality.

LOTRO offers things like more bag spaces and removing the gold cap and even priority login for those with V.I.P. accounts. So if World of Warcraft decided to follow the LOTRO model and go semi-free-to-play, would you just play the free portion? Would you pay for the V.I.P. portion? Would you buy the other nickel and dime upgrades they have on top of that? Or would you quit WoW altogether, feeling as if Blizzard had shortchanged players by making us pay for things like bag space, PvP and raid availability?

PC Gamer posted an interview with Tom Chilton where he discussed the possibility of World of Warcraft eventually going free-to-play. He clarified that there are no active plans for this now, but he can imagine a future where it would be possible.

As massively multiplayer games become more mainstream, a common tactic to compete with WoW is to make the games free to play while charging microtransactions for in-game content. It makes games more accessible, and in theory can make publishers enough revenues that they can be profitable. If enough games break even this way and WoW starts losing momentum and market penetration, instead of shutting down, it would only make sense for Blizzard to keep the game available for the residual income. The original EverQuest is still live, for example. Instead of leaving vast empty realms populated by a very small number of nostalgic gamers, however, making WoW free-to-play could keep it residually profitable for longer.

While WoW will undoubtedly lose the majority of the market share some day, this day is not close. Warcraft is past the red-hot growth phase of its life cycle; however, it's still the largest player in the market. Chilton acknowledges that there's no reason for Blizzard to make this change while this is the case: "We're not spending a lot of time thinking about it. It's not something that's a reality for us in the near future."

I think this is an interesting post by Grancran over on the official forums. We've already talked about how Blizzard is revamping the newbie experience in upcoming releases (including the next patch and the expansion), but he wants to know: for whom? Sure, there are going to be lots and lots of people going through the starting experience again when the expansion rolls around, both because of the new class combinations and the new races, but all of those people have already played the game. Why update a tutorial system when the majority of gamers have already played WoW?

It's an interesting question. Neth answers pretty tamely, saying that we were all noobs at one point, and that they want to make the starting areas as welcome as possible. But the question remains: is Blizzard expecting an influx of new players at some point in the future?

Dungeons and Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited goes free-to-play today, so we put together a little round-up of our best guides for this new content. Maybe you're confused on how the new DDO Store will work, or have heard rumors about what aspect of the game is truly free-to-play. Massively has you covered!

	Massively's DDO Unlimited developer tour Love can sometimes be a fickle thing, but I'm pretty sure that I love what Turbine has done with the DDO Store in Dungeons and Dragons Online Unlimited. I'll admit that initially I was a little concerned with the concept of an in-game store, but after playing with it at bit and asking some questions my fears have pretty much melted away.
	Massively Speaking Episode 57: DDO with Jerry Snook Massively Speaking Episode 57 returns this week with an entire episode dedicated to Dungeons and Dragons Online and their recent announcement about going free-to-play. Shawn is joined by DDOCast host Jerry Snook as they discuss the ins and outs, good and bad of a 3-year-old game going F2P.
	The pros and cons of free to play Dungeons and Dragons Online Dungeons and Dragons Online going free to play is undoubtedly an awesome announcement. But exactly how awesome of an announcement is it? Yesterday we were all over the announcement, covering the basics of what can be expected with this changeover from subscription based to free to play. But now, I'd like to break that down even further, and really look at the changes in an in-depth manner.
	DDO goes F2P: An interview with Turbine As the news hit yesterday concerning Dungeons and Dragons Online going free-to-play, many MMO gamers collectively rejoiced, while others didn't. The idea of this hybrid business model is wonderful for those who have yet to experience DDO, as it now gives them a chance to play the game as long as they'd like, with no level cap restrictions for absolutely no cost. This means no credit card info changing hands, no commitments to a monthly fee and the implied need to "get your money's worth" and no real need to quit the game if you can't afford it. But it can't be that easy, can it? Well, there's a slight catch.

Yes, our friend Medros of All Things Azeroth joined us on the podcast last week for an extra long show, and what we can say? There was just tons of things to talk about. Medros, Turpster, our own Lesley Smith and I answered your emails (including updates on faction changes as well as the big response we got from fans of Ensidia last week), and talked about the most popular stories from the World of Warcraft. Of course we didn't need the chat channel to remind us of the Worgen pet issue (though they reminded us anyway), we talked about Tom Chilton's interview and the chance that WoW may one day go "free to play," and we talked about Bind to Account items twice: how they'll work with faction changes in the future, and what items like the Tome of Cold Weather Flight tell us about Blizzard's plans for the future.

Lots of laughs were had, and hopefully we gave out some insight as well. Enjoy the show, and we'll see you next week. I'll still be out of town, so we're not quite sure when it'll be broadcasting live yet, but stay tuned here to WoW.com -- we'll let you know as soon as we do. Or just subscribe up in iTunes, and you'll get every show sent directly to your iPod every week like clockwork. And if you do head over there, be sure to toss us a rating and/or a review -- the more you put in there, the merrier we'll be. Thanks!

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Our good friends at Massively have written up a post just for you WoW players about the new hotness in MMOs lately, a game called Free Realms. I haven't gotten a chance to play it, but it's all the team over there can talk about, and the game itself just hit a whopping three million players. It's a free-to-play game (with more premium memberships getting more features -- the minimum is about $5 a month) put out by Sony Online Entertainment that aims towards a more casual audience, with extra content placed in for more hardcore gamers. The questing and leveling itself is very forgiving -- you have a dotted green line leading you to quest targets, and combat only takes place in instanced areas. But the crafting and other various minigames (in order to do mining, you actually play a Bejewelled-style matching game, and there's even a "Kart Driver" profession) can get pretty hard. Just like WoW, those who want to collect pets or build skills can do that, while those who are more interested in dungeon crawling have that option as well.

I've been meaning to pick up the game and check it out (on the free level, of course -- with my WoW subscription running, I'm not made of MMO money), and Massively's guide is an excellent first overview to how the game relates to our favorite MMO. If you're getting a little bored in Azeroth waiting for the next expansion announcement and are looking for something else to try, Free Realms might just be it.

Sometimes you'd like to know that there are other MMOs out there, right? Our sister site Massively can provide you with everything you need to know about all MMOs, including WoW! Check out this roundup of the latest news from the wider MMO world.

	Champions Online Press NDA lifts: See our impressions This last weekend, press had the opportunity to spend my time within the Champions Online beta. After playing more than I would safely recommend, I bring you my personal takeaway in an effort to get out as much crunchy information goodness on the upcoming MMO as possible.
	Five free to play MMOs that are ahead of the class Times are tough, the wallet is tight, and you still need a game to play. But what free games can you wrap your hands around that just don't suck, right? That seems to be the trouble with free to play games -- many selections all with very low quality. But the market is not as bad as you might think. There are certainly some gems out there in the free to play market, just waiting for you to wrap your hands around them and play. Finding them however, hasn't always been easy, until now.
	Massively's post-launch interview with Free Realms Free Realms has launched, the floodgates have been opened and the servers have multiplied like little fluffy bunnies. Despite a slight delay, the launch's feedback has been predominantly positive. Not only is this rare for an MMO launch these days, considering the factors, but it's also a testament to the team involved.

See if you can follow this reasoning: WoW has ten million players, which is nice and all, but there are actually 800 million teens in the world. Therefore, since Blizzard hasn't reached even 10% of them (80 million), WoW is not actually a success. That's what Craig Sherman of Gaia Online (a casual, browser-based MMO) said to folks at the M16 Marketing conference in San Francisco this week. He claims that WoW's subscription fee has hampered its growth, and that it would be even bigger if there was a free-to-play model.

But his reasoning is unstable there to say the least. Part of the reason WoW is so successful is that Blizzard has had the cash to put up for new servers, new content, and a brand new HQ, and with a free-to-play model, they wouldn't be making nearly as much money as they are. Not to mention the quality of the players -- in my experience, part of the reason WoW is such a good game is that when people pay to play it, you often get a much more interested and involved player base. And of course, while yes, WoW hasn't reached a larger fraction of its "potential" player base (however you define that -- what makes Sherman think that Blizzard is targeting teens at all?), anyone who thinks a 10 million player MMO is "not a success" needs to examine the rest of the MMO market more closely.

Will there be a game bigger than World of Warcraft? It sure seems like it -- at some point in the future, there should be a game that does go free to play and does hit on all the marks -- casual, hardcore, serious, fun -- that World of Warcraft does (in fact, maybe WoW itself will someday open up a free-to-play model). But to claim that WoW has somehow suffered from its subscription model is pretty far from the truth.

[Via Worldofwar.net]

Curse Gaming posted a rumor the other day from a Chinese newspaper named RedlineChina that The9 (the company that runs World of Warcraft in China) is considering switching the game to a "free-to-play" model. As Curse notes, the rumor is just that-- a rumor-- especially considering that The9 is raking in the cash over there. So take this with a nice big cubic block of salt-- odds are that both you and Chinese players will be paying that monthly subscription for years to come.

Still, it's an interesting idea. There are a few free-to-play MMOs here in the US, but there are many, many more over in Asian countries like China and Korea. And there's no question that as popular as World of Warcraft is now, it would be even more popular as a free-to-play model. Odds are that The9 would have to come up with some other form of revenue if they did switch it to free-to-play, although as it is, you can play for free on a demo here in the US-- maybe RedlineChina really meant to report that The9 is going to start releasing free demo copies, up to level 20 with a week of free play, or some plan like that, while still charging for the full game.

At any rate, this is more likely a miscommunication than a rumor with any substance at all. Especially with subscriptions rising and the next expansion on the way, Blizzard is nowhere near even lowering the price on a WoW subscription.