Ferrel of Epic Slant and Chris of Game By Night have a new podcast titled MMO Radio. The show differs from their previous efforts with the Multiverse (where they invited me to guest twice) in that they have gone with the increasingly popular shorter format and also include segments on tabletop gaming. The new format appears to be working for them in the form of more frequent updates - in the time it took me to listen to last week's episode and type up this response, they've recorded and released a new one. All of that plugging aside, back to last week's episode.
Describing Business Models By What You Are Paying For
Chris suggests that "Buy to Play" might be more sustainable than "Free to Play", and cites LOTRO as an example. I have far more concerns about the sustainability of "Buy to Play", and I'd hold up LOTRO as the poster child for these concerns. To understand why, we need to take a step back and look at how these models actually work.
If you go back into the old days - EQ1, early WoW, etc - MMO's charged for two things. You would pay one-time fees for access to content (i.e. the game box and expansions) and recurring fees for services used to access that content (i.e. the subscription time, which was mandatory). These core parts of the business actually haven't changed all that much with all the time that has passed and all the new terms and user interfaces that have been added since. What has changed is how the charges for content and service are presented.
In today's non-subscription market, recurring fees for use of the content do not necessarily take the form of a straight up charge for a fixed dollar amount. When your game's cash shop requires the use of consumables to clear death penalties, improve new gear as you obtain it, travel around the world, etc, that is how you are paying for the service. For the question Chris asks about sustainability, the important point is that this is recurring revenue that the developer will continue to receive from you for as long as you pay for the game.
The other extreme in non-subscription games is to sell off your content - and sometimes game features - as one-time unlocks that do not require any ongoing payment as you continue using them. One big advantage to this approach when relaunching an existing game with years of content already created is that there is a lot of stuff already in game for new players - or existing players who are dropping down to non-subscriber status - to buy. This is roughly how I see Turbine's model today - heavily focused on one-time unlocks for content (and sometimes features) with almost nothing in the way of one-time payments for ongoing use of the service.
So which of these two approaches is more sustainable? Whether pay-for-content is sustainable depends heavily on how frequently you are able to produce content. As Ferrel pointed out on the show, DDO's adventure packs are perfect for this approach because Turbine can push them out every other month year-round. If, on the other hand, you are in the business of making large open zones that you can only finish once or twice per year, perhaps the rate of content generation is not the best thing to tie your income to long term. In this case - which is true for most MMO's - the only way for the business to be sustainable is to somehow charge people for continuing to play the game.
Aside: "Pay to Win"
Many players who are or were a raiders in a subscription MMO have a profoundly negative view of the free to play cash shop model, which they widely dub as "Pay to Win". This view makes sense when you look at what it means for them personally.
The subscription fee does not scale with how much you play the game - in fact, sometimes the developer WANTS you to play more so you will stay engaged and stay subscribed - while paying through an item shop means that you are very likely paying in proportion to how much you actually play the game. If you are used to paying the same subscription fee as everyone else and yet having the developer spend disproportionate attention making raid content for your single digit percentile of the population, then yes, in the short term, you'd rather have it the way it was in the old days. Whether this ultimately pushes the entire genre in directions that you do not like is more of a long term problem....
Showing posts with label LOTRO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LOTRO. Show all posts
2013 Prediction Update
It's been all of 24 hours since I posted my belated predictions for the year, and there is already breaking news.
- Turbine dis-confirmed one of my LOTRO predictions by announcing the addition of a new region in the upcoming Update 11. I had predicted they would skip this roughly annual tradition in favor of saving more content for the fall expansion.
- Trion announced plans to publish the Eastern sandbox MMO ArcheAge in the West.
A decision like this one either does or does not make sense on its own merits based on whether Trion will make significant profit out of the deal. There are probably also economies of scale in publishing additional titles now that Trion is already publishing two titles and counting (whenever End of Nations re-emerges) - SOE also announced plans to pick up an Asian MMO last year. Overall, it doesn't disprove my theory about Rift going free to play this year, but the studio's backers clearly aren't throwing in the towel on the effort as a whole.
Bhagpuss also questions whether Archeage's release affects my call that we will get most of the way into 2013 without a "major event launch". My gut still says no - the whole point of making a sandbox game is not to try and replicate the mass hype followed by exodus that has plagued the AAA MMO's of recent years. Selling large numbers of boxes is great, but having 75% of your players leave within a few months will kill the community that you need to sustain your sandbox longterm. Time will tell, but I am not expecting this to be an over-hyped event.
Belated Predictions For 2013
Last year's predictions did not go so well. I predicted that it would not be a great year for new subscription MMO's, but I also thought that SWTOR would skate by as a high churn subscription title, and that WoW could not afford to leave Cataclysm sitting on the shelf beyond early summer. Even so, I've found that I have a fair number of predictions either scattered through my blog and other peoples' comment sections, so I figure there's no harm in collecting all of my comic inaccuracy in a single spot.
Anyway, here are my belated predictions - I don't know if this makes my job easier because I have a month of additional information (see first item, below) or harder because there is less time left for the predictions to come true. In any case, if I have predicted bad things for your favorite MMO this year, rest assured that my lack of accuracy well have guaranteed your game's smashing success. :)
Rift Goes Free To Play in 2013
First up, a minor cheat by exploiting information that only became available in late January. Two days ago, I would have said that Executive Producers Scott Hartsman's position against turning the game free to play would be enough to keep it from happening in 2013 - even if Trion's views eventually changed, failing to work ahead on the conversion would keep it from launching this year.
Then came news that Hartsman has departed from Trion Studios. In the last week, we also learned that Trion's MMOFPS Defiance plans to launch with a buy-to-play model featuring a $60 box and no recurring subscriptions. We already knew that the online strategy game End of Nations - assuming it survives being in-sourced into Trion proper - was going to be Free to Play. Going back to last year, Rift already has an in-game store, and then there were the layoffs at Trion and the former End of Nations developers.
Moving this particular game to free-to-play is debatable, but Trion has investors to answer to. As long as things are going really well, Trion has the ammo it needs to justify why they are continuing to buck the overwhelming industry trend. If things have started to go downhill - and the layoffs suggest that they have - then we can expect Rift to lose its subscription in 2013.
LOTRO: Helm's Deep Or Bust
As I've previous written, I think LOTRO is under a lot of pressure to increase revenue THIS year. Turbine's 2008 press release indicated that they have the license through 2014, with options to extend the term out to 2017. We don't know whether the terms of the option years are favorable, and presumably the studio's new owners at Warner Brothers are capable of re-negotiating a reasonable deal if this is worth their time.
That makes 2013 the year in which Turbine has to prove the game's worth. LOTRO will not fold in 2013, but if things go badly it could very well close when the license issue comes due in 2014. To this end, I expect the following:
Asheron's Call 3 Announced
It's possible that Turbine dusted off AC2 just as a lark of a weekend project. Then again, we know that they've been working on a mystery title for a while, and it would make a lot of sense for them to work in their own IP so that they are not at the mercy of some rightsholder.
Blizzard Updates
This is a Blizzcon year, which means we will probably get some announcements in addition to the oft-delayed Starcraft II expansion. My guesses:
I'm not going to belabor my analysis from last week - this studio was on shaky footing before TSW disappointed, and I'm not convinced that layoffs alone can balance the books, especially if they hurt the ability to deliver future updates. I'm not sure what EA does on a day to day basis as the publisher for TSW - if they own the servers, billing system, etc, that would be a major impediment to any attempt to sell the title off.
New Subscription MMO's
If an MMO studio asked me for advice, I'd say that attempting to launch a new MMO with a box price and a monthly fee is really poorly advised. However, I don't think the industry is quite ready to let this approach die just yet. Looking at two major upcoming releases that have yet to announce business models:
After proudly proclaiming 2012 the year of the Kickstarter-funded game - and cheerfully pocketing 5% of the proceeds with no obligation to help ensure that backers get what was promised - Kickstarter is due for a reckoning. At least one video game product that received $1 million in backing will go bankrupt before delivering the promised game in 2013.
Kickstarter will make some token changes in response to the backlash, but will remain constrained by their business model - they make money when projects are successfully funded, not when they force creators to post information that dissuades people from backing risky and/or poorly thought out efforts. Expect some minimal token effort before returning to business as usual, but the incident will cost the site some of its hip status within the blogosphere.
No big winner, but perhaps balance?
Overall, I don't see a single MMO emerging as the big winner in 2013, the way that Guild Wars 2 arguably won the half of 2012 after its release. When you look at Syp's list of new MMO's to watch in 2013, half either aren't traditional MMO's or else are unlikely to release in 2013. As a result, we're likely to get at least 8-9 months into 2013 without a major event launch with the traditional cycle of hype - and all too often disappointment. (We could go the entire year if I'm wrong and Elder Scrolls slips into 2014.) Even the slate of major expansions is going to be relatively quiet since many of the big players released something in late 2012.
This is a real opportunity for MMO's that are currently sitting in the middle of the pack. Players will still wander from game to game, and now is the time where an existing product, with most of the rough edges from launch already smoothed out, can potentially make a big impression. Even if all of the things I've suggested come to pass, 2013 could be a good year on the balance if we come out the other side with a solid pool of games that are quietly getting the job done.
Anyway, here are my belated predictions - I don't know if this makes my job easier because I have a month of additional information (see first item, below) or harder because there is less time left for the predictions to come true. In any case, if I have predicted bad things for your favorite MMO this year, rest assured that my lack of accuracy well have guaranteed your game's smashing success. :)
Rift Goes Free To Play in 2013
First up, a minor cheat by exploiting information that only became available in late January. Two days ago, I would have said that Executive Producers Scott Hartsman's position against turning the game free to play would be enough to keep it from happening in 2013 - even if Trion's views eventually changed, failing to work ahead on the conversion would keep it from launching this year.
Then came news that Hartsman has departed from Trion Studios. In the last week, we also learned that Trion's MMOFPS Defiance plans to launch with a buy-to-play model featuring a $60 box and no recurring subscriptions. We already knew that the online strategy game End of Nations - assuming it survives being in-sourced into Trion proper - was going to be Free to Play. Going back to last year, Rift already has an in-game store, and then there were the layoffs at Trion and the former End of Nations developers.
Moving this particular game to free-to-play is debatable, but Trion has investors to answer to. As long as things are going really well, Trion has the ammo it needs to justify why they are continuing to buck the overwhelming industry trend. If things have started to go downhill - and the layoffs suggest that they have - then we can expect Rift to lose its subscription in 2013.
LOTRO: Helm's Deep Or Bust
As I've previous written, I think LOTRO is under a lot of pressure to increase revenue THIS year. Turbine's 2008 press release indicated that they have the license through 2014, with options to extend the term out to 2017. We don't know whether the terms of the option years are favorable, and presumably the studio's new owners at Warner Brothers are capable of re-negotiating a reasonable deal if this is worth their time.
That makes 2013 the year in which Turbine has to prove the game's worth. LOTRO will not fold in 2013, but if things go badly it could very well close when the license issue comes due in 2014. To this end, I expect the following:
- Unlike last year's Great River update or the F2P relaunch's Enedwaith region, we will NOT see a new region added at the current level cap. The price point on these new optional areas has generally been low, and that makes it a questionable investment that would be better saved for the next expansion.
- Speaking of which, I expect the new expansion to require a minimum purchase of $50, up from $40 last year and $30 the year before. As with last year, Turbine will offer plenty of opportunity to pay full price early and then discount the thing by 50% for an end-of-year sale once the early adopters have paid up.
- The expansion will bump the level cap to 95. LOTRO has lots of level-scaling content in past expansions that could be used to level to the new cap and skip buying the new content. Making the cap higher makes that option less desirable because you would have more levels to grind out.
- The actual battle of Helm's Deep - which, as in recent years, may get delayed to a patch after the expansion launch - will be presented from multiple different perspectives so that solo, group, raid, and monster players can all participate in this iconic bit of the lore.
Asheron's Call 3 Announced
It's possible that Turbine dusted off AC2 just as a lark of a weekend project. Then again, we know that they've been working on a mystery title for a while, and it would make a lot of sense for them to work in their own IP so that they are not at the mercy of some rightsholder.
Blizzard Updates
This is a Blizzcon year, which means we will probably get some announcements in addition to the oft-delayed Starcraft II expansion. My guesses:
- WoW's next expansion announced, but will not be ready for beta in 2013. After years of promising to try and get expansions out in a more timely fashion, Blizzard finally concedes that it's going to be 20+ months like the previous attempts.
- Blizzard announces a console based non-subscription spinoff of one of its existing IP's. A recent rumor suggested that this was the real nature of Titan, the long rumored online followup to WoW, but that was supposed to be an original IP. We know they've been flirting with consoles for years now, and I'm guessing that this is a separate effort. It will be interesting to see whether it runs on current generation console hardware, as Blizzard's development cycle is so long that next generation consoles will probably arrive before this game does.
- Titan will finally be announced, but will not be playable or in any way suggesting it will debut in 2014. Blizzard has had time to ponder how DIII went for them and see the way the wind is blowing, so this game will NOT have a subscription. It will instead be designed from the ground up with something - content, characters, etc - that people can purchase to keep the revenue flowing.
I'm not going to belabor my analysis from last week - this studio was on shaky footing before TSW disappointed, and I'm not convinced that layoffs alone can balance the books, especially if they hurt the ability to deliver future updates. I'm not sure what EA does on a day to day basis as the publisher for TSW - if they own the servers, billing system, etc, that would be a major impediment to any attempt to sell the title off.
New Subscription MMO's
If an MMO studio asked me for advice, I'd say that attempting to launch a new MMO with a box price and a monthly fee is really poorly advised. However, I don't think the industry is quite ready to let this approach die just yet. Looking at two major upcoming releases that have yet to announce business models:
- Wildstar: Will definitely have a box price at launch. I predict it will not charge a subscription by the end of 2013 - either they'll be smart and not try or they'll be forced to reconsider between launch and the end of the year.
- Elder Scrolls Online: With all the hype they're already firing up for this game's beta, this game shows all the signs of having a large budget, and they are declining to state their planned business model. It's possible that they are going to go buy-to-play with frequent paid DLC and are saving this piece of news to build anticipation for the inevitable pre-purchase campaign. Still, GW2 aside, I will believe that a big budget MMO like this one is willing to voluntarily surrender the monthly fee when I see it.
So I predict Elder Scrolls WILL launch with a monthly fee. They will probably still have it through at least the end of 2013, but that may have more to do with launching late in the year than with the game's success. (I do predict they will launch this year - even Blizzard doesn't start its beta process an entire year in advance of release.)
After proudly proclaiming 2012 the year of the Kickstarter-funded game - and cheerfully pocketing 5% of the proceeds with no obligation to help ensure that backers get what was promised - Kickstarter is due for a reckoning. At least one video game product that received $1 million in backing will go bankrupt before delivering the promised game in 2013.
Kickstarter will make some token changes in response to the backlash, but will remain constrained by their business model - they make money when projects are successfully funded, not when they force creators to post information that dissuades people from backing risky and/or poorly thought out efforts. Expect some minimal token effort before returning to business as usual, but the incident will cost the site some of its hip status within the blogosphere.
No big winner, but perhaps balance?
Overall, I don't see a single MMO emerging as the big winner in 2013, the way that Guild Wars 2 arguably won the half of 2012 after its release. When you look at Syp's list of new MMO's to watch in 2013, half either aren't traditional MMO's or else are unlikely to release in 2013. As a result, we're likely to get at least 8-9 months into 2013 without a major event launch with the traditional cycle of hype - and all too often disappointment. (We could go the entire year if I'm wrong and Elder Scrolls slips into 2014.) Even the slate of major expansions is going to be relatively quiet since many of the big players released something in late 2012.
This is a real opportunity for MMO's that are currently sitting in the middle of the pack. Players will still wander from game to game, and now is the time where an existing product, with most of the rough edges from launch already smoothed out, can potentially make a big impression. Even if all of the things I've suggested come to pass, 2013 could be a good year on the balance if we come out the other side with a solid pool of games that are quietly getting the job done.
The Cost of Per-Hero Games
The Marvel Heroes "free to play MMO Action-RPG" is rolling out pre-launch prepurchase offers that include a $200 "Ultimate Pack" for access to all heroes and costumes announced for launch. Traditional MMO's with a premium package this expensive have typically had to throw in a lifetime subscription. In the case of Marvel, the pack is very clear that it does not get you anything beyond the heroes announced for launch (some of which have since been delayed but will be included in the pack when they are completed). Instead, they are marketing the $200 as a discounted price - "a $750 value" compared to what it would cost to buy the characters individually.
The sub-$10 character
Looking at Marvel Heroes' cheaper pre-launch packs, individual heroes are bundled with some costumes and exp potions for $20, but my guess is that you will be able to get your characters for less than the psychologically significant $10 price point to encourage impulse purchases post-launch. There seems to be broad consensus around this type of price point across a variety of other games in a variety of genres. A few examples:
What you get for the money
A big part of the secret may be that you are getting something comparatively tangible for your money. If you are playing the Marvel MMO then maybe it is worth $10 per head for you to pick up all of the Avengers who appeared in the movie. Even the cosmetic costumes are potentially meaningful when you look at long-standing characters who have been depicted in dramatically different art styles over the decades. Like DDO's paid content packs, it feels more rewarding to pay something to get something, compared to the model in various other games that charge players to remove restrictions that are added to make non-subscribers want to pay.
This particular model isn't broadly transferable to traditional MMO's because our genre has focused more on vertical progression using a single character. Games like Marvel Heroes that were designed from the ground up to take advantage of non-subscription payment methods also have a big advantage over MMO's that were designed for a subscription, only to be revamped when the market refused to tolerate that model.
Even so, I find the concept vaguely compelling and perhaps even promising. Most of the evidence from the last few years calls into question whether the prices the market is willing to pay are sufficient to support the development of the traditional MMO content model. Meanwhile, here is an alternative in which studios are putting out regular, sustainable updates that customers are actually happy to pay for. It's certainly not perfect, but it beats going out of business.
The sub-$10 character
Looking at Marvel Heroes' cheaper pre-launch packs, individual heroes are bundled with some costumes and exp potions for $20, but my guess is that you will be able to get your characters for less than the psychologically significant $10 price point to encourage impulse purchases post-launch. There seems to be broad consensus around this type of price point across a variety of other games in a variety of genres. A few examples:
- Champions in the MOBA League of Legends
- Mechs in the mech-based FPS Mechwarrior Online
- Heroes in the Warhammer Online Spin-off MOBA Wrath of Heroes
- Most monster player classes in LOTRO (free to those who take the optional subscription)
- Premade PVP "legends" characters in DCUO
- The $9 action figures that grant access to DLC characters in the popular Skylanders console game series
What you get for the money
A big part of the secret may be that you are getting something comparatively tangible for your money. If you are playing the Marvel MMO then maybe it is worth $10 per head for you to pick up all of the Avengers who appeared in the movie. Even the cosmetic costumes are potentially meaningful when you look at long-standing characters who have been depicted in dramatically different art styles over the decades. Like DDO's paid content packs, it feels more rewarding to pay something to get something, compared to the model in various other games that charge players to remove restrictions that are added to make non-subscribers want to pay.
This particular model isn't broadly transferable to traditional MMO's because our genre has focused more on vertical progression using a single character. Games like Marvel Heroes that were designed from the ground up to take advantage of non-subscription payment methods also have a big advantage over MMO's that were designed for a subscription, only to be revamped when the market refused to tolerate that model.
Even so, I find the concept vaguely compelling and perhaps even promising. Most of the evidence from the last few years calls into question whether the prices the market is willing to pay are sufficient to support the development of the traditional MMO content model. Meanwhile, here is an alternative in which studios are putting out regular, sustainable updates that customers are actually happy to pay for. It's certainly not perfect, but it beats going out of business.
New Year's Resolutions for 2013
My annual New Year's Resolution post is usually lengthy but not that insightful - half of the items are short term goals that get done soon afterwards and the other half are more pie-in-the sky things that don't happen at all. My year for 2012 can be summarized with two lines of facts:
- Prior to October: Level capped characters in seven different MMO's simultaneously, posting on the blog every 2-3 days (11-18 posts/month)
- Post-October: Level capped characters remain in only three MMO's due to expansions I have yet to catch up to, posting to the blog once or twice per week, +1 infant
I'm happy with this turn of events, but it does put realistic constraints on what I can aspire to in-game during the coming year. A few resolutions, which are more qualitative than specific:
Work on what I have
2012 wasn't all bad when it came to trying new things. I started and capped characters in STO and SWTOR, along with some very brief (often one-evening) visits to Aion, Tera, EQ1, and TSW. That said, it was a tough year to carve out time for anything new, and that does not figure to change in 2013.
I currently have what I need (access and game time as appropriate) for content I have yet to use in WoW, LOTRO, DCUO, TSW, DDO, STO, and SWTOR. I don't expect any of these titles to fold in 2013, but it really makes more sense to focus on my backlog at this point. I'm fine with my budget where it currently sits, but it's pointless to collect more stuff that I don't have time to play - the best sale price is still a waste if I don't use the content.
Learn when NOT to beat the business model
While my time is scarce, I do get enjoyment out of snagging a good bargain. Sometimes, when the payoff is high enough, it can make sense to grind in-game to "beat the business model".
For instance, according to SWTOR Spy's Cartel calculator, I have unlocked more than 10,000 Cartel Coins' worth of stuff by purchasing the relevant unlocks on the GTN for in-game credits. This would have cost me $80 in the cash shop, while species and inventory unlocks I picked up for alts during my last month of subscription time could potentially have cost another $40. I did spend a fair amount of extra time in game sending my companions on slicing missions and farming daily quests (which also awarded several high end pieces of gear for my main) to pay for all of these unlocks, but this was definitely a major payoff for my time.
Even so, cash shops are a reality of the market today, and I should really make better use of them. If an unlock is purely cosmetic, it makes sense to do without or set it aside as a reward for earning the credits in game. When it comes to exp potions and other things that affect the rate of advancement, it's worth asking whether the game is worth playing if it's worth paying to play it less. However, when an unlock actually impacts quality of life - e.g. not being able to harvest materials I encounter in the world because one of my crewskill slots is locked - it really makes more sense to pay a couple dollars and move on.
Focus on my perspective
This blog will celebrate its 1000th post early next year and its fifth birthday in the spring. While limited time has been the most immediate cause for my current drop in posts, the results are somewhat positive.
I don't view reporting the news as one of this blog's strengths. I will post immediate reactions sometimes, especially if I have an opinion I'm not seeing from other folks, but often the "breaking news" of the MMO world does not even come with enough detail to support in-depth analysis. Because I know that most of my posts will not be timely, I'm free to spend most of my limited time working on more of the big picture, such as trends that tie recent developments into past experiences.
I intentionally don't have a set format or schedule for the blog, because this is a hobby and I prefer flexibility to write what I want. That the schedule happens to support the kind of posts that I like to write is a happy coincidence.
Thanks to all of my readers, best wishes, and a happy new year!
2012 MMO Expenditures
I've been keeping detailed logs of my MMO spending for roughly two years now, and I elected to publish them for the first time last year. My experience probably isn't typical, as I spent a total of $275 on eight different MMO's in 2012, where most people probably stick to a smaller number of games. That said, two broad observations:
And now for the full ledger. My accounting practice is to bill purchases of content and cash store currency in the year they were paid for, but to bill game time in the year in which it is actually used. Titles are listed in chronological order.
World of Warcraft: $80 (+$60?) (+$35 to 2013)
I wrote an annual pass post-mortem when the year of game time I purchased through that promotion lapsed. The short form is that I don't regret the approximately $80 for ten months of game time that I used in 2012, but the $60 Diablo III purchase (which I'm not counting against my MMO budget because it isn't an MMO) that I made in order to get that deal was a bit of a fail.
One big difference between this and past expansion cycles was the early availability of holiday discounts on the brand new expansion. Through holiday sales and promos, I was able to snag the Pandaria box and a 6o day time card with which to play it for $35. (I have yet to use these things, so I'm counting them for next year.)
Rift: $10.72
As a brief recap, I had paid for the box at launch last year, ended the included month at level 36 or so, and leveled the rest of the way to the game's cap using Trion's frequent free retrial weekends. Just when I was thinking of coming back for a month, I ran into a firesale on game time cards - 90 days for less than a single month. Perhaps they were afraid they'd be stuck with unsold inventory if the game went free to play? In principle, I still have some time left, though I'd have to purchase the expansion - even if I did want to re-roll, I'd probably want access to the new souls.
Star Trek Online: $11.40
I went foraging for an old retail box of this game to snag one month's subscription time. This is useful because you get to keep any additional storage granted by being a subscriber at each rank (10 levels) tier. I also spent $5 on the smallest quantity of Cryptic points so I could purchase an early increase to my duty officer cap.
SWTOR: $70
I waited until patch 1.2, which was widely viewed as the patch that was going to finish all of the odds and ends that didn't get done in time for release. As a reward for my patience, I got the account key direct from EA for $40 instead of the list price of $60. (I also somehow qualified for the "loyalty" bonus minipet that was granted to current subscribers for sticking with the game during the early months, despite having shown up that week.) I subbed up for an additional month to get my first character to the level cap, and subbed up again just prior to the free to play relaunch in order to take advantage of some of the grandfathered perks former subscribers get.
EQ2 AND DCUO: $20
I don't remember exactly why I chose to throw $20 at a station cash sale sometime around April/May. Through a series of sales so aggressive that they forced all content and game time out of SOE's in-game stores for good, I ended up turning that $20 into the $40 Age of Discovery expansion and 6 months of subscription time in EQ2 (I forget the exact discount you get for six month subs, probably $75ish).
(I also snagged the three DCUO DLC packs I did not already own at the time of the "we are taking DLC out of the cash store because our marketing people have broken the payment model" final sale in August, but I think that was from the Station Cash leftover from last year.)
Setting aside the absurdity of how long it took SOE to notice this was going on, I'll be the first to admit that the status quo could not continue. EQ2 may also have finally tweaked its payment model to the point where paying on a non-subscription basis is worthwhile. That said, some of EQ2's recent expansions have been so thin that there really wasn't much more than a month's worth of entertainment that a solo player could carve out of them. It's hard to justify $50-60 for an expansion box plus either subscription time or unlocks if I'm going to get so little time out of them compared to all the other titles on this list - no wonder Smedley wants to get out of the content creation business.
LOTRO: $43
I paid $8 for a small Turbine Point bundle to snag the barter wallet upgrade. It is irritating that Turbine is so heavily focused on charging for fixes to longstanding design issues (in this case, their addiction to non-stacking character-bound token rewards), and I probably could have earned the Turbine points in game, but I decided solving this problem was worth the $8.
Then Turbine decided that the first expansion to player inventory since 2007 would be exclusive to the $70 Rohan expansion bundle for several months. Fortunately, Turbine can be counted on to discount expansions aggressively, so I just waited a few weeks and got the bags and whistles edition for 50% off, i.e. less than what people paid for the regular edition at launch. This bundle also included a fair number of Turbine points, which I will no doubt need to spend on unlocking basic UI improvements over the next year.
DDO: $25
Speaking of Turbine expansion discounts, I also snagged the DDO expansion for 50% off through a Steam sale. Apparently I was lacking in patience, as Turbine slashed the price further down to 75% off for Black Friday. I hadn't spent any real world money on this game since mid-2010 (albeit only playing the game sporadically during that window), I suppose a few extra bucks isn't the end of the world.
One could argue whether I actually needed this expansion in the first place, as I do not have any high level characters. The one thing that I have gotten a fair amount of use out of is one of the bonus throw-ins: a greater tome of learning. I generally don't favor paying for experience boosts, but this particular bonus actually changes the way that you play the game by adding a hefty bonus to each quest the first time you complete it (reset if you true reincarnate). This effectively removes the requirement to repeat midlevel content for exp. I'm happy to repeat DDO's content eventually, but I'd rather not do it immediately, and now I don't have to.
The Secret World: $15
I was poised to skip every single MMO that launched in 2012 until a last minute switch in payment model, followed by an Amazon sale offering the newly buy-to-play title for $15, made TSW too intriguing to pass up. I had initially passed on this title as much due to my crowded schedule and a few rough edges during my very brief visit to the beta as to anything on the game's merits (such as its subscription model).
The game-changer with the buy-to-play switch is not the amount of money, but rather the amount of time I would need to invest immediately to determine whether the product is worth future subscription payments. I've spent a few hours with the game so far and it does show some promise, especially as a secondary title. I can't see how my one-time payment suddenly props up the game's finances, but I suppose it couldn't hurt?
Grand Total: $275 (not counting DIII)
Subtotal for Content/Currency Purchases: $123 (includes $25 of the $40 SWTOR box price)
Subtotal for Game Time: $152
- Game time for specific two subscription titles - WoW and SWTOR (well, it was) - represents about half of my total ($125, counting the first $15 of the SWTOR box cost as payment for the first 30 days). This number is higher than it could have been due to the annual pass. Even so, my spending on these two games EACH nearly doubles the next highest item on my ledger.
- Setting aside those two subscription payments (WoW's was technically discounted), I did not pay full price for anything that I purchased this year - I'd estimate that I paid about half of the asking price overall. Some of these savings come from retailers looking to dump stock, but many of them were provided directly from the publishers. It's not accurate to look at all of this as lost revenue for the studios - some of the lower priority titles would not have made the cut at full price. Even so, sales are a reality of the business, and are going to be a factor for anyone looking to base their business model primarily on one-time buy-to-play transactions. As the number of games I play increases, it is easier and easier to wait for the sale before pulling the trigger, especially if there is any reason to be concerned about quality/polish.
And now for the full ledger. My accounting practice is to bill purchases of content and cash store currency in the year they were paid for, but to bill game time in the year in which it is actually used. Titles are listed in chronological order.
I wrote an annual pass post-mortem when the year of game time I purchased through that promotion lapsed. The short form is that I don't regret the approximately $80 for ten months of game time that I used in 2012, but the $60 Diablo III purchase (which I'm not counting against my MMO budget because it isn't an MMO) that I made in order to get that deal was a bit of a fail.
One big difference between this and past expansion cycles was the early availability of holiday discounts on the brand new expansion. Through holiday sales and promos, I was able to snag the Pandaria box and a 6o day time card with which to play it for $35. (I have yet to use these things, so I'm counting them for next year.)
Rift: $10.72
As a brief recap, I had paid for the box at launch last year, ended the included month at level 36 or so, and leveled the rest of the way to the game's cap using Trion's frequent free retrial weekends. Just when I was thinking of coming back for a month, I ran into a firesale on game time cards - 90 days for less than a single month. Perhaps they were afraid they'd be stuck with unsold inventory if the game went free to play? In principle, I still have some time left, though I'd have to purchase the expansion - even if I did want to re-roll, I'd probably want access to the new souls.
Star Trek Online: $11.40
I went foraging for an old retail box of this game to snag one month's subscription time. This is useful because you get to keep any additional storage granted by being a subscriber at each rank (10 levels) tier. I also spent $5 on the smallest quantity of Cryptic points so I could purchase an early increase to my duty officer cap.
SWTOR: $70
I waited until patch 1.2, which was widely viewed as the patch that was going to finish all of the odds and ends that didn't get done in time for release. As a reward for my patience, I got the account key direct from EA for $40 instead of the list price of $60. (I also somehow qualified for the "loyalty" bonus minipet that was granted to current subscribers for sticking with the game during the early months, despite having shown up that week.) I subbed up for an additional month to get my first character to the level cap, and subbed up again just prior to the free to play relaunch in order to take advantage of some of the grandfathered perks former subscribers get.
EQ2 AND DCUO: $20
I don't remember exactly why I chose to throw $20 at a station cash sale sometime around April/May. Through a series of sales so aggressive that they forced all content and game time out of SOE's in-game stores for good, I ended up turning that $20 into the $40 Age of Discovery expansion and 6 months of subscription time in EQ2 (I forget the exact discount you get for six month subs, probably $75ish).
(I also snagged the three DCUO DLC packs I did not already own at the time of the "we are taking DLC out of the cash store because our marketing people have broken the payment model" final sale in August, but I think that was from the Station Cash leftover from last year.)
Setting aside the absurdity of how long it took SOE to notice this was going on, I'll be the first to admit that the status quo could not continue. EQ2 may also have finally tweaked its payment model to the point where paying on a non-subscription basis is worthwhile. That said, some of EQ2's recent expansions have been so thin that there really wasn't much more than a month's worth of entertainment that a solo player could carve out of them. It's hard to justify $50-60 for an expansion box plus either subscription time or unlocks if I'm going to get so little time out of them compared to all the other titles on this list - no wonder Smedley wants to get out of the content creation business.
LOTRO: $43
I paid $8 for a small Turbine Point bundle to snag the barter wallet upgrade. It is irritating that Turbine is so heavily focused on charging for fixes to longstanding design issues (in this case, their addiction to non-stacking character-bound token rewards), and I probably could have earned the Turbine points in game, but I decided solving this problem was worth the $8.
Then Turbine decided that the first expansion to player inventory since 2007 would be exclusive to the $70 Rohan expansion bundle for several months. Fortunately, Turbine can be counted on to discount expansions aggressively, so I just waited a few weeks and got the bags and whistles edition for 50% off, i.e. less than what people paid for the regular edition at launch. This bundle also included a fair number of Turbine points, which I will no doubt need to spend on unlocking basic UI improvements over the next year.
DDO: $25
Speaking of Turbine expansion discounts, I also snagged the DDO expansion for 50% off through a Steam sale. Apparently I was lacking in patience, as Turbine slashed the price further down to 75% off for Black Friday. I hadn't spent any real world money on this game since mid-2010 (albeit only playing the game sporadically during that window), I suppose a few extra bucks isn't the end of the world.
One could argue whether I actually needed this expansion in the first place, as I do not have any high level characters. The one thing that I have gotten a fair amount of use out of is one of the bonus throw-ins: a greater tome of learning. I generally don't favor paying for experience boosts, but this particular bonus actually changes the way that you play the game by adding a hefty bonus to each quest the first time you complete it (reset if you true reincarnate). This effectively removes the requirement to repeat midlevel content for exp. I'm happy to repeat DDO's content eventually, but I'd rather not do it immediately, and now I don't have to.
The Secret World: $15
I was poised to skip every single MMO that launched in 2012 until a last minute switch in payment model, followed by an Amazon sale offering the newly buy-to-play title for $15, made TSW too intriguing to pass up. I had initially passed on this title as much due to my crowded schedule and a few rough edges during my very brief visit to the beta as to anything on the game's merits (such as its subscription model).
The game-changer with the buy-to-play switch is not the amount of money, but rather the amount of time I would need to invest immediately to determine whether the product is worth future subscription payments. I've spent a few hours with the game so far and it does show some promise, especially as a secondary title. I can't see how my one-time payment suddenly props up the game's finances, but I suppose it couldn't hurt?
Grand Total: $275 (not counting DIII)
Subtotal for Content/Currency Purchases: $123 (includes $25 of the $40 SWTOR box price)
Subtotal for Game Time: $152
A Critical Look at Turbine's Status
Roger at Contains Moderate Peril has a summary of some of the recent developments indicating that all may not be as well as gamers believe at Turbine, makers of Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online. The fate of any one studio or project aside, Turbine's status matters because DDO's relaunch kicked off the modern wave of free to play revamps. Bloggers like myself frequently cite the company's content-selling approach as an alternative to the more subscription-driven models at studios like SOE and Bioware. If Turbine's situation goes south, there are implications for the entire industry.
The missing context of DDO's revival
Turbine's success is often taken as gospel based on press statements that lack context. Yes, revenue increased by 500 percent over the first two months after the famous DDO re-launch. Yes, even the subscriber numbers went up 40%. What these relative numbers lack is a baseline.
For a nine month period while Turbine was revamping the game, no new content was added - a situation which would be tailor-made for increased subscribers after the next big patch, even if there had not been the hype of a relaunch. Revenue would almost certainly have been further depressed by some players choosing to cancel their subscriptions and await the relaunch before paying more. If we assume that Turbine's press people chose the most favorable numbers - which is their job after all - then that 5-fold increase is not a realistic baseline.
None of which matters if the increase in revenue were sustained. I've been arguing since 2010 that the limited data we have does not bode well on that front. According to a 2010 Game Developer's Conference talk - to my knowledge, the only such information Turbine has disclosed - the DDO's top ten revenue items included five one-time account unlocks, and three additional purchases (character slots, supreme +1 and +2 tomes) that are paid for only once per character.
We don't know whether this trend continues. That said, my experience with the Turbine model has been that customers can expect somewhat high one-time costs in setting up their accounts, but longterm savings that are significantly below the price of the subscription. This year to date, my total expenses are $25 for DDO and $40 for LOTRO, and both purchases will carry me well into next year. I'm not a heavy player of either game, but those numbers pale in comparison to what even an infrequent subscriber will spend. To the extent that my experience is representative, I suspect that Turbine's revenue has definitely dropped off from that one-time re-launch peak.
(As an aside, one analysis of the studio's 2010 sale to Warner Bros indicated that the studio had previously raised at least $100 million in investment capital, which would make the rumored $160 million sale price an underwhelming return on investment. While I'm largely ignorant of how investors compare annual operating profit to the purchase price of a company, my guess is that there is an upper limit to how well the games can have been doing at that time.)
What we can tell about today
As Roger reports, what little we know of Turbine's status this year includes layoffs, hiring of senior officials with job descriptions like "responsible for our digital technology platform that helps drive online engagement and monetization", and the termination of foreign language support for DDO. What we are seeing on the game development front is not more heartening.
Turbine's major releases this year in both games have drawn fire for uncharacteristically high rates of show-stopping bugs, even after a high profile delay to this year's Rohan launch. Prices have trended upward, with DDO's latest high level adventure pack coming in at 750 Turbine Points, compared to 450 for most releases in 2010, and expansions (themselves a new thing to DDO) coming in at $50 for the cheapest DDO bundle that includes the new class and $70 for the LOTRO bundle that includes the game's first bagspace increase since 2007. Turbine was quick to promote 2011's Isengard expansion as the best-seller in the studio's history, but I haven't seen even such vague comments on either of this year's releases.
Meanwhile, monetization is indeed on the rise in Middle Earth, with apparel mannequins displaying cosmetic outfits that initially appeared in the most remote, dangerous locations in the world, a $10 cosmetic purchase that lets Dwarves take off their shirts, and the joke hobby horse with its hypothetical $50 price tag. Meanwhile, it feels like buggy and unpopular systems - kill deed grinds, legendary item grinds, holiday festival grinds, etc - are being retained in part so that fixes for them can be saved for the cash shop.
None of these individually allows us to distinguish a for-profit company making reasonable efforts to increase revenue from a less favorable scenario in which the studio is struggling to maintain revenue as the short-term gains from the game's front-loaded business model are translating into non-subscribers who no longer need to purchase much of anything. All of the above collectively, however, starts to suggest the less-cheery scenario.
2013: make-or-break year?
I don't think Turbine is going to be the surprise MMO studio closure of 2013, but I do think this may be a moment of truth for the company. According to a 2008 press release, the LOTRO's license for the intellectual property runs through 2014 with options to extend it through 2017. Having a sudden and unfavorable chance in the license terms is the one thing that can suddenly kill a game that had been coasting along without issues.
We don't know the terms of the license, and it's certainly possible that Warner Brothers has the clout to negotiate a more favorable rate if they feel it's worth their time. The big question is whether it is worth their time, or whether this was primarily a transaction intended to net the parent corporation online community transaction technology and infrastructure. I'm certainly hoping it's the former given my investment in Turbine's games, and their generally enjoyable qualities. Time will tell whether that view is realistic.
The missing context of DDO's revival
Turbine's success is often taken as gospel based on press statements that lack context. Yes, revenue increased by 500 percent over the first two months after the famous DDO re-launch. Yes, even the subscriber numbers went up 40%. What these relative numbers lack is a baseline.
For a nine month period while Turbine was revamping the game, no new content was added - a situation which would be tailor-made for increased subscribers after the next big patch, even if there had not been the hype of a relaunch. Revenue would almost certainly have been further depressed by some players choosing to cancel their subscriptions and await the relaunch before paying more. If we assume that Turbine's press people chose the most favorable numbers - which is their job after all - then that 5-fold increase is not a realistic baseline.
None of which matters if the increase in revenue were sustained. I've been arguing since 2010 that the limited data we have does not bode well on that front. According to a 2010 Game Developer's Conference talk - to my knowledge, the only such information Turbine has disclosed - the DDO's top ten revenue items included five one-time account unlocks, and three additional purchases (character slots, supreme +1 and +2 tomes) that are paid for only once per character.
We don't know whether this trend continues. That said, my experience with the Turbine model has been that customers can expect somewhat high one-time costs in setting up their accounts, but longterm savings that are significantly below the price of the subscription. This year to date, my total expenses are $25 for DDO and $40 for LOTRO, and both purchases will carry me well into next year. I'm not a heavy player of either game, but those numbers pale in comparison to what even an infrequent subscriber will spend. To the extent that my experience is representative, I suspect that Turbine's revenue has definitely dropped off from that one-time re-launch peak.
(As an aside, one analysis of the studio's 2010 sale to Warner Bros indicated that the studio had previously raised at least $100 million in investment capital, which would make the rumored $160 million sale price an underwhelming return on investment. While I'm largely ignorant of how investors compare annual operating profit to the purchase price of a company, my guess is that there is an upper limit to how well the games can have been doing at that time.)
What we can tell about today
As Roger reports, what little we know of Turbine's status this year includes layoffs, hiring of senior officials with job descriptions like "responsible for our digital technology platform that helps drive online engagement and monetization", and the termination of foreign language support for DDO. What we are seeing on the game development front is not more heartening.
Turbine's major releases this year in both games have drawn fire for uncharacteristically high rates of show-stopping bugs, even after a high profile delay to this year's Rohan launch. Prices have trended upward, with DDO's latest high level adventure pack coming in at 750 Turbine Points, compared to 450 for most releases in 2010, and expansions (themselves a new thing to DDO) coming in at $50 for the cheapest DDO bundle that includes the new class and $70 for the LOTRO bundle that includes the game's first bagspace increase since 2007. Turbine was quick to promote 2011's Isengard expansion as the best-seller in the studio's history, but I haven't seen even such vague comments on either of this year's releases.
Meanwhile, monetization is indeed on the rise in Middle Earth, with apparel mannequins displaying cosmetic outfits that initially appeared in the most remote, dangerous locations in the world, a $10 cosmetic purchase that lets Dwarves take off their shirts, and the joke hobby horse with its hypothetical $50 price tag. Meanwhile, it feels like buggy and unpopular systems - kill deed grinds, legendary item grinds, holiday festival grinds, etc - are being retained in part so that fixes for them can be saved for the cash shop.
None of these individually allows us to distinguish a for-profit company making reasonable efforts to increase revenue from a less favorable scenario in which the studio is struggling to maintain revenue as the short-term gains from the game's front-loaded business model are translating into non-subscribers who no longer need to purchase much of anything. All of the above collectively, however, starts to suggest the less-cheery scenario.
2013: make-or-break year?
I don't think Turbine is going to be the surprise MMO studio closure of 2013, but I do think this may be a moment of truth for the company. According to a 2008 press release, the LOTRO's license for the intellectual property runs through 2014 with options to extend it through 2017. Having a sudden and unfavorable chance in the license terms is the one thing that can suddenly kill a game that had been coasting along without issues.
We don't know the terms of the license, and it's certainly possible that Warner Brothers has the clout to negotiate a more favorable rate if they feel it's worth their time. The big question is whether it is worth their time, or whether this was primarily a transaction intended to net the parent corporation online community transaction technology and infrastructure. I'm certainly hoping it's the former given my investment in Turbine's games, and their generally enjoyable qualities. Time will tell whether that view is realistic.
MMO Black Friday 2012
U.S. Black Friday is upon us, and there are some discounts to be had.
- For those willing to brave the stores, WoW's Pandaria expansion will be 50% off. Blizzard does not feel obliged to offer a similar discount online, so presumably this is in part to help retailers move their boxes. Not sure if this is technically a sign of weakness, as WoW's last two expansions were not timed right to be discounted on Black Friday, and digital sales are almost certainly a bigger piece of the pie this year.
- As is traditional, Turbine is offering deep discounts on expansions, including 50% off of the six week old Rohan expansion in LOTRO and 75% off of this summer's DDO expansions.
Both products bundled various extras that may or may not be of interest to players in order to justify higher price tags ($50 for the cheapest DDO bundle that includes the new class, $70 for LOTRO's legendary bundle, which was the only way to get the sixth inventory bag until recently). Both become attractive upsells when the price is slashed 50%. In LOTRO, the $40 base edition comes with the content and 1000 Turbine Points, while the $70 edition comes with the sixth bag (which costs 995 TP itself and is specifically excluded from this week's sale on inventory upgrades), an extra 1000 TP (for a total of 2000), and some various cosmetic miscellany. At half off, you're getting those extras for $15 and still paying less than the full price on the base edition.
Various other MMO's have launched expansions probably too recently to offer deep discounts - both Rift and EQ2 rolled out last week. I don't expect major discounts on Guild Wars 2 because they don't have a subscription fee that would motivate them to dump boxes (though Amazon is currently offering it for $45). However, we could see some cash store sales in various games that don't have a dirt cheap expansion on offer. If you know of anything interesting, leave a comment and I'll add it to this post assuming I'm not in a turkey coma or fighting for my life in stores at the time. :)
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
SWTOR: Selling Around What They Can Produce?
As the comments on my SWTOR impressions post point out, the obvious alternative to the approach that Bioware has taken with the game would have been to sell access to the game's solo story content. The game's leveling content is viewed as the best part of the product, and it would seem counterintuitive to have given all of it away for free. The catch is that Bioware could NOT afford to get into the business of exclusively selling content because they are incapable of making content fast enough to sustain that model.
When you look at the minority of nonsubscription games that do charge for content - Turbine (DDO, LOTRO) and Kingsisle (Wizard 101, Pirate 101) - typically nonsubscribers have to be treated relatively well. If you restrict the non subscription experience too heavily, players won't stick around to buy content. For this to work, your content must be produced in small, repeatable chunks that you can release regularly. Many of the issues we are seeing in LOTRO - bundling purchases into larger packages, preserving poorly implemented grinds and charging for features that no other company bills for - arise because that game's content is NOT bite-sized, repeatable, or quick to produce.
If you can't stay afloat by selling new content, you have to generate ongoing revenue from people using your existing content. This is the route taken by the majority of nonsubscription games, whether they were originally designed that way or retrofit in a relaunch (like SWTOR). For subscription retrofits, this often translates into restrictions that nonsubscribers cannot pay to remove, in an effort to make the "optional" subscription less optional. If you can continue to retain the subscribers you had, collect some new nonsubscription revenue from people who were not subscribing, and incidentally rake in a ton from cosmetic cash store items, the thinking is that you will come out ahead. More important to your bottom line, your revenue is less dependent on you ability to generate new content.
If Bioware has erred, their error may be consistency. You don't want to charge too early and drive players away before they've given you a chance, but perhaps they should have been more willing to let people who still aren't paying more than halfway through the game leave. What I'm guessing they were most afraid of was that introducing charges for stuff that was free earlier in the game (e.g. quests) would have an especially strong effect on players sticking around. This fear of inconsistency may be what led to the game only charging for things that were introduced later in the level progression, such as group and PVP content.
Misc Notes
When you look at the minority of nonsubscription games that do charge for content - Turbine (DDO, LOTRO) and Kingsisle (Wizard 101, Pirate 101) - typically nonsubscribers have to be treated relatively well. If you restrict the non subscription experience too heavily, players won't stick around to buy content. For this to work, your content must be produced in small, repeatable chunks that you can release regularly. Many of the issues we are seeing in LOTRO - bundling purchases into larger packages, preserving poorly implemented grinds and charging for features that no other company bills for - arise because that game's content is NOT bite-sized, repeatable, or quick to produce.
If you can't stay afloat by selling new content, you have to generate ongoing revenue from people using your existing content. This is the route taken by the majority of nonsubscription games, whether they were originally designed that way or retrofit in a relaunch (like SWTOR). For subscription retrofits, this often translates into restrictions that nonsubscribers cannot pay to remove, in an effort to make the "optional" subscription less optional. If you can continue to retain the subscribers you had, collect some new nonsubscription revenue from people who were not subscribing, and incidentally rake in a ton from cosmetic cash store items, the thinking is that you will come out ahead. More important to your bottom line, your revenue is less dependent on you ability to generate new content.
If Bioware has erred, their error may be consistency. You don't want to charge too early and drive players away before they've given you a chance, but perhaps they should have been more willing to let people who still aren't paying more than halfway through the game leave. What I'm guessing they were most afraid of was that introducing charges for stuff that was free earlier in the game (e.g. quests) would have an especially strong effect on players sticking around. This fear of inconsistency may be what led to the game only charging for things that were introduced later in the level progression, such as group and PVP content.
Misc Notes
- While it is possible to play the leveling game completely free, I'd suggest that almost all players who expect to stick with it will benefit from spending at least some money to qualify for the "preferred" status. The best bang for buck here is to snag the $5 coin bundle and take either a third crewskill slot for your main or a third hotbar and some points to spare. If you're willing to go to $10, you can snag both the third crewskill and the third and fourth hotbars for your main (or a third hotbar accountwide if you plan to play alts). Including the perks for the preferred upgrade, this fixes many of the most glaring deficiencies in your leveling experience.
- The cash shop allows players to pay money to unlock things earlier than it would be possible to earn them through class and/or legacy level. For example, you previously needed a character most of the way to the level cap if you wanted the legacy level required to pay credits to unlock species for use with all classes. Now you can pay to have a Sith Pureblood Jedi Knight almost immediately (limited only by the need to get to level 10 first so you can unlock a legacy on which to place the unlock). It's also worth scanning the character perks tab of the legacy UI, as some options are available for relatively few Cartel Coins and sooner than they would have been if you had tried to earn them in-game.
- Bioware is trying a few tweaks that I haven't seen previously when it comes to the point stipend for subscribers. Multi-month subscribers get increased stipend rates, and there's also an increased stipend for subscribers who use an authenticator. I don't expect to change any purchasing decisions over this, but it's a nice perk for those who are already on board.
- Character slots are a big X-factor in the game's business model. Bioware does intend to add the ability to purchase character slots, and will enforce limits when they do get that up and running. The Legacy system is a big incentive to stay on one server, but in principle players can go to multiple servers if the price is too high - in particular, some of the cartel store account-wide unlocks are good across servers.
Random Vertical Progression Musings
A few tidbits from the blogs that address vertical progression:
- Keen proposes that levels should be removed from WoW because they are easy but time consuming to obtain, and are required for access to group PVE and PVP content. This is perhaps a natural extension of the issues with PVP gear and reputation that have been hounding Pandaria since its release.
I generally agree that MMO's should not be designed to require one form of content (solo, group, PVP) for access to another - frankly, I think the quality of WoW's leveling game as a solo experience has suffered for all the changes required to keep the level cap accessible to group players. (EQ2 has the same problem.) The challenge is that levels are tied to meaningful progression - acquisition of spells, talents, etc that actually influence how you play the game. I've spent a fair amount of time one-shotting my way through story content I have overleveled in WoW and LOTRO, and it can be fun, but the complete lack of any change to your character becomes very noticeable. I also don't think it's good design to hit newbies with three hotbars full of spells, but I don't see how any form of up-mentoring that does not include every meaningful form of character advancement - levels, spells, talents, etc - will be acceptable for min-max'ed endgame content.
I think it is far more likely that we will see some form of instant max level functionality added to the game, probably in the next year or so. The lack of a function for mentoring down in levels from WoW in 2012 is a bit sad, but we haven't commonly seen the opposite approach offered because it does not actually solve the problem. - Spinks reminds me that Assassin's Creed 3 is coming. This is a game I am looking forward to playing - it was the only line not directly tied to Turbine swag that I stood in at PAX East this year - but I do have an odd vertical progression block. I'm currently partway through the storyline of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, the middle game in what became a trilogy around AC2 protagonist Ezio Auditore. While it looks like the new game will be doing a ton of cool things, and I'm guessing they will probably offer some form of synopsis, it seems a shame to have a future game spoil the end of the previous entries. Oh well, I suppose console games only get cheaper.
- Meanwhile in my baby-friendly MMO of choice. WoW Pet Battles have some odd vertical progression. In principle, the system is independent of the game's regular leveling curve, though it is far easier if you have a flying mount and outlevel the local mobs. Each pet gains levels separately, while the level of wild pets scales such that all of the zone in the game map in approximately the correct order to the 25 levels of battle pets.
If you really need a pet of a certain level, you can always go tame whatever you can find locally (up to the highest level of a pet you currently own) - you can swap out your pets anywhere at any time when not in a pet battle. However, if you want to keep a specific pet handy - perhaps a favorite that you had from prior to the pet battle system, or perhaps a wild pet that has useful stats - you will need to keep that pet leveling as you go. You also generally want to have approximately level appropriate pets handy for taming attempts, as it is possible to (and extremely sad when you) one-shot a blue quality pet you were hoping to capture.
All of that said, it's a relatively non-linear progression in that you can always choose to go backwards, and that is a good thing.
Watching NPC Story in Theramore
WoW's expansion launch non-event is live, which means that level 85 players are now free to preview the level 90 Fall of Theramore scenario five levels early for one week only. I suppose my expectations should have been low given that Blizzard has been going out of their way to note that they did not want to spend lots of development time on an event that would be here for one week and then gone forever. Even so, I have been disappointed, and the biggest factor has been the story.
As Rohan notes, we're effectively reduced to watching a small window into a tale that only makes sense if you have read the associated novel. Assuming that you aren't afraid of spoilers, WoWhead's summary details what appears to be the entire contents of the book. It is only with this additional context that the story even begins to make sense - both the motivations of the characters to upend a truce that has been in place since Warcraft III and the details, such as how the Focusing Iris (widely seen by players in the puggable raid finder version of Dragon Soul) ends up involved.
This is a bit disappointing coming from a company that originally made the decision never to spam players with more than 250ish characters of quest text when they could instead be showing players the story in-game. Part of the mystique of the old Alliance Onyxia attunement questline was how the players actually were the heroes who unveiled the black dragon's treachery. Reading the synopsis of the novel, there are numerous places that could have been opportunities for players to participate in a major lore event that does not seem to have needed to happen prior to the expansion launch. Instead, all of these things are reserved for another medium, and players in the actual game are just left to view the aftermath.
Don't get me wrong, I don't always expect my characters to be the most powerful/important characters in the lore of the game. LOTRO somehow manages to make the player characters seem significant even though some NPC noobs named Aragorn, Gandalf, and Legolas (stereotypical Elf Hunter), et al keep stealing all of the best kills. Blizzard just doesn't handle the presence of external story material as well, hasn't done so for a number of years now, but they seem happy with how they're doing it.
(Ironically and cleverly, author Christie Golden has written your Alliance characters - yes, yours personally - into an un-named cameo appearance. Apparently someone failed to tell her that the scenario was 3-player instead of the customary 5, but the idea of having Jaina acknowledge the presence of un-named Alliance allies in the book is a relatively clever tie-in.)
Other general comments:
As Rohan notes, we're effectively reduced to watching a small window into a tale that only makes sense if you have read the associated novel. Assuming that you aren't afraid of spoilers, WoWhead's summary details what appears to be the entire contents of the book. It is only with this additional context that the story even begins to make sense - both the motivations of the characters to upend a truce that has been in place since Warcraft III and the details, such as how the Focusing Iris (widely seen by players in the puggable raid finder version of Dragon Soul) ends up involved.
This is a bit disappointing coming from a company that originally made the decision never to spam players with more than 250ish characters of quest text when they could instead be showing players the story in-game. Part of the mystique of the old Alliance Onyxia attunement questline was how the players actually were the heroes who unveiled the black dragon's treachery. Reading the synopsis of the novel, there are numerous places that could have been opportunities for players to participate in a major lore event that does not seem to have needed to happen prior to the expansion launch. Instead, all of these things are reserved for another medium, and players in the actual game are just left to view the aftermath.
Don't get me wrong, I don't always expect my characters to be the most powerful/important characters in the lore of the game. LOTRO somehow manages to make the player characters seem significant even though some NPC noobs named Aragorn, Gandalf, and Legolas (stereotypical Elf Hunter), et al keep stealing all of the best kills. Blizzard just doesn't handle the presence of external story material as well, hasn't done so for a number of years now, but they seem happy with how they're doing it.
(Ironically and cleverly, author Christie Golden has written your Alliance characters - yes, yours personally - into an un-named cameo appearance. Apparently someone failed to tell her that the scenario was 3-player instead of the customary 5, but the idea of having Jaina acknowledge the presence of un-named Alliance allies in the book is a relatively clever tie-in.)
Other general comments:
- Scenario gameplay is a reasonable group-like experience that can be completed by three DPS players, though you can expect to spend more effort on staying alive through use of cooldowns and other class tricks that often get shelved with a real tank and healer. There is also a focus on pulling multiple soloable mobs, such that each player can take their own share if no one player can tank all the mobs at once. As a solo player, I think they nailed the gameplay, in that it's much more like what I actually experience when playing the game.
- I assume there is a limit to how many instances can be up at a time, as the system displays wait times of up to an hour (though I usually wait a fraction of that).
- The loot seems nice enough, though it's unclear what if anything determines what items you will get, how many times you can expect to run the event if you're after specific items, etc. On the downside, it may not be worth paying for gold to gem and enchant gear the week the expansion comes out, but at least you can keep the stuff banked for future transmog/appearance use.
- I didn't get to try the event on my Horde warrior, as he does not possess the required gearscore and I simply don't care enough to farm for this problem. Judging from WoWhead's video, the scenario appears to be as close to mirrored as it could be given that the Horde has to win in preparing to destroy the city and the Alliance has to win in cleaning up the aftermath.
The Captive MMO Audience
Roger at Contains Moderate Peril suggests that MMO players tend to forget that they are also consumers. He notes that we are fast to blame for-profit companies that kill games for monetary reasons, but slow to hold service providers we are otherwise fond of accountable for failure to provide services. This sounds reasonable in the aggregate, but I don't find that I have either of these problems. I also spend almost none of my time doing social activities, like raiding or PVP, that would tie me down to a specific product. Perhaps these things are related?
At issue are delays to the Riders of Rohan pre-purchase compensation package. Roger correctly notes that Turbine accepted payment in full in advance for pre-purchase of a product with a promised date that Turbine failed to meet. This might in most other circumstances be considered breach of contract. Instead of complaining, I and various others actually praised the move as a way to deliver a more polished product at what may also be a more strategic time.
The guys at Penny Arcade once quipped that Blizzard had developed a business model in which they rent players' friends to them on a monthly basis. No matter how early or late, how buggy or how polished, everyone needs to buy the new content when it is released if they are to play together. (This part isn't unique to MMO's - I've seen friends pester each other to buy new maps for FPS's, and I don't believe any of them ever received a cut from the games' publishers for this peer pressure marketing campaign.) A player who does, as Roger suggests, feel that they are not getting acceptable service finds their friends held hostage - there may be various alternative games on the market, but the odds of reassembling the same group are low.
By contrast, I have the luxury of acting like a pure consumer because there's no one waiting on me to get the new content to fill out their raid group. I never considered pre-purchasing Rohan, because I know from past experience that Turbine will offer steep discounts within a month or two (the new date is not that far from Black Friday). I'm not thrilled with Turbine's decision to bundle in a bunch of extras I don't want to justify a higher price tag for the expansion package, but I don't need to pay the premium that will be required of the captive portion of the audience.
Ironically, the cost of expanding the MMO demographic beyond the traditional social, group-oriented player may have been that the market actually is less tolerant of the things that studios got away with in 2005 when it was a smaller but more loyal playerbase. For good or for ill, perhaps millions of players are now free to quit games like WoW and SWTOR precisely because less of the MMO audience are captives.
At issue are delays to the Riders of Rohan pre-purchase compensation package. Roger correctly notes that Turbine accepted payment in full in advance for pre-purchase of a product with a promised date that Turbine failed to meet. This might in most other circumstances be considered breach of contract. Instead of complaining, I and various others actually praised the move as a way to deliver a more polished product at what may also be a more strategic time.
The guys at Penny Arcade once quipped that Blizzard had developed a business model in which they rent players' friends to them on a monthly basis. No matter how early or late, how buggy or how polished, everyone needs to buy the new content when it is released if they are to play together. (This part isn't unique to MMO's - I've seen friends pester each other to buy new maps for FPS's, and I don't believe any of them ever received a cut from the games' publishers for this peer pressure marketing campaign.) A player who does, as Roger suggests, feel that they are not getting acceptable service finds their friends held hostage - there may be various alternative games on the market, but the odds of reassembling the same group are low.
By contrast, I have the luxury of acting like a pure consumer because there's no one waiting on me to get the new content to fill out their raid group. I never considered pre-purchasing Rohan, because I know from past experience that Turbine will offer steep discounts within a month or two (the new date is not that far from Black Friday). I'm not thrilled with Turbine's decision to bundle in a bunch of extras I don't want to justify a higher price tag for the expansion package, but I don't need to pay the premium that will be required of the captive portion of the audience.
Ironically, the cost of expanding the MMO demographic beyond the traditional social, group-oriented player may have been that the market actually is less tolerant of the things that studios got away with in 2005 when it was a smaller but more loyal playerbase. For good or for ill, perhaps millions of players are now free to quit games like WoW and SWTOR precisely because less of the MMO audience are captives.
What I've Been Working On: LOTRO, STO
As part of our Labor Day holiday weekend, we went down to the Smithsonian yesterday to check out the Art of Video Games exhibit. It's a fun walk down memory lane - amusing to see stuff I owned copies of 20 years ago behind glass at a museum. If the trip to Washington in the next few weeks is not in the cards for you, take a look at the tour schedule to see if it will be anywhere near you.
Anyway, the trip into town put me behind on the schedule for covering all of my MMO's within a week, so today we cover two games.
LOTRO
The six week delay for the Rohan expansion to avoid the crush of Guild Wars 2 and Pandaria's release dates is a minor reprieve for me. I did hit the current level cap and complete the epic story, but there is a large amount of reasonably high quality quest content that I have yet to see. I'm torn on this, because I hate to skip good content, but I'm not sure if I will get to all of it even with the extension. Moreover, there are deeds for traits and Turbine Points at stake. If I left the Dunland area and Great River areas now, they will be the first where I have failed to finish the local quest deeds.
Realistically, I'm expecting to run out of time here. Perhaps I'll just hold onto the in-progress quests and then go back to one-shot through them at level 85. On the plus side, at least they're producing content that I want to complete.
STO
I'm technically at the level cap in this game despite having done almost none of the leveling content, thanks to a focus on the duty officer system. The developer responsible for implementing this mechanic has since left the studio. In his absence, very little new content is being added to the system for its own sake - for the most part, new duty officers entering the game are added through lottery items in the cash shop, and are being used to introduce more abilities that affect the regular portions of the game (which I almost never play).
Cryptic has always stated that part of the point of the system was to add a minigame that was consistent with microtransactions in the post-subscription era. That said, I'm definitely feeling like I've mostly "beaten" this aspect of the game. Meanwhile, as combat abilities continue to be added, I can see the officers rewarded through the duty officer system becoming increasingly less optional for people who wanted no part in it. As they say, all good things come to an end, I suppose.
Anyway, the trip into town put me behind on the schedule for covering all of my MMO's within a week, so today we cover two games.
LOTRO
The six week delay for the Rohan expansion to avoid the crush of Guild Wars 2 and Pandaria's release dates is a minor reprieve for me. I did hit the current level cap and complete the epic story, but there is a large amount of reasonably high quality quest content that I have yet to see. I'm torn on this, because I hate to skip good content, but I'm not sure if I will get to all of it even with the extension. Moreover, there are deeds for traits and Turbine Points at stake. If I left the Dunland area and Great River areas now, they will be the first where I have failed to finish the local quest deeds.
Realistically, I'm expecting to run out of time here. Perhaps I'll just hold onto the in-progress quests and then go back to one-shot through them at level 85. On the plus side, at least they're producing content that I want to complete.
STO
I'm technically at the level cap in this game despite having done almost none of the leveling content, thanks to a focus on the duty officer system. The developer responsible for implementing this mechanic has since left the studio. In his absence, very little new content is being added to the system for its own sake - for the most part, new duty officers entering the game are added through lottery items in the cash shop, and are being used to introduce more abilities that affect the regular portions of the game (which I almost never play).
Cryptic has always stated that part of the point of the system was to add a minigame that was consistent with microtransactions in the post-subscription era. That said, I'm definitely feeling like I've mostly "beaten" this aspect of the game. Meanwhile, as combat abilities continue to be added, I can see the officers rewarded through the duty officer system becoming increasingly less optional for people who wanted no part in it. As they say, all good things come to an end, I suppose.
Expansion Launch Timelines
This week, Turbine somewhat unexpectedly delayed LOTRO's expansion, set to go live in about two weeks, back into mid-October.
I haven't been in the beta, but Spinks made a round-up and it sounds like the expansion was in pretty good shape other than the mounted combat system. It's certainly possible that this is part of the problem - mounted combat is reportedly a substantial chunk of the expansion, and some of Blizzard's experiences with vehicle/dragon combat in the Wrath era suggests that players do not love being forced into something that changes their playstyle. Some of LOTRO's game systems already have a bad reputation for being grindy, and I could see some concern if this one was also buggy to boot.
That said, the more I think about it, the more I'm wondering that the real problem is the release date calendar. Turbine claimed the September 5th date back on June 5th, but on June 28th Guild Wars 2 declared that it would "launch" (early access aside) a mere week earlier, on August 28th. Blizzard responded by placing WoW's expansion on September 25th, and later added to the scuffle by putting patch 5.0 with talent changes and other system updates on August 28th.
Turbine isn't new to this game, and they're not afraid to launch against competition - the Moria expansion launched the week after Wrath of the Lich King. (Then again, Turbine has never placed another product in physical stores since that day.) That said, I'm wondering if they just didn't like their odds of seeing their expansion drowned out by most of the known MMO world descending on either WoW or GW2. They'll still be up against Rift with its un-announced expansion launch and possibly some other tidbits (perhaps the end of the year EQ2 expansion, or SWTOR's relaunch), but I like their odds better in October than right here and now.
I haven't been in the beta, but Spinks made a round-up and it sounds like the expansion was in pretty good shape other than the mounted combat system. It's certainly possible that this is part of the problem - mounted combat is reportedly a substantial chunk of the expansion, and some of Blizzard's experiences with vehicle/dragon combat in the Wrath era suggests that players do not love being forced into something that changes their playstyle. Some of LOTRO's game systems already have a bad reputation for being grindy, and I could see some concern if this one was also buggy to boot.
That said, the more I think about it, the more I'm wondering that the real problem is the release date calendar. Turbine claimed the September 5th date back on June 5th, but on June 28th Guild Wars 2 declared that it would "launch" (early access aside) a mere week earlier, on August 28th. Blizzard responded by placing WoW's expansion on September 25th, and later added to the scuffle by putting patch 5.0 with talent changes and other system updates on August 28th.
Turbine isn't new to this game, and they're not afraid to launch against competition - the Moria expansion launched the week after Wrath of the Lich King. (Then again, Turbine has never placed another product in physical stores since that day.) That said, I'm wondering if they just didn't like their odds of seeing their expansion drowned out by most of the known MMO world descending on either WoW or GW2. They'll still be up against Rift with its un-announced expansion launch and possibly some other tidbits (perhaps the end of the year EQ2 expansion, or SWTOR's relaunch), but I like their odds better in October than right here and now.
Can We Monetize MMO's Via DLC?
"The use of a free-to-play monetization model requires careful placement of your best content, what I call "carrots," on the other side of payment opportunities that I call "gates.""We've had a week to process the bombshell of SWTOR's sudden (albeit in development through November) planned change in business model. Many of us, myself included, have thrown out roughly the same ideas about how the game's solo leveling story content was its best feature, while its endgame appears to be failing to retain players.
- "Game monetization expert Ramin Shokrizade", writing for Gamasutra
For the sake of argument, I will assume Mr. Shokrizade means that Bioware should have monetized access to the story missions, which he calls the "best parts" of the game. I was fumbling around the same suggestion a few months ago in light of rumors about a potential added fee for the game's forthcoming new planet - this seemed inconsistent with a subscription model, and I had assumed that they would not take the subscription off the table so early. Could selling access to content throughout the game - perhaps on a planet by planet basis similar to LOTRO's model - really have doubled or tripled Bioware's revenues?
I'm not convinced for a number of reasons.
- It would be hard to justify the $60 fee for the box if very little of the content were included. While retail definitely ate a chunk of this revenue, we know that over two million copies were sold. That's a lot of microtransactions.
- Just as charging the monthly fee rewards players for finishing early, charging by the planet rewards players for skipping optional content or quitting outright if they're not loving the story. Offering up opportunities to quit every few levels might not be in the developers' best interest, especially if you run into players like myself who struggle to find a class with both a good story and fun mechanics.
- The real issue, though, is development costs. Say that Bioware could have sold the base game with just the Act I stories but no subscription for the full $60 and charged some amount of money per planet per class thereafter. This doesn't add up to much more than the revenue they get from their single player offerings and paid DLC, which cost much less to develop. Further, adding more planets in the future may well be cost prohibitive (a theory that I suppose we are about to test).
Meanwhile, for all the hype concerning the performance of Turbine's approach to free to play, which is roughly what we're discussing here, there are some signs that Turbine may be struggling with the sustainability issue. We are seeing both point bundles and expansions bundled into larger and more expensive packages, while more and more power is added for sale in the store. That said, if the answer really is that we can't have games like SWTOR because there is no way to make them commercially viable, that's a pretty big disappointment for the future.
Gameplay Trumps Business Model
The conventional wisdom in discussions about the future of the subscription MMO is that the continued success of World of Warcraft proves that players are willing to pay each and every month for a quality product. I think the quality of the product and the experience ultimately trumps the business model, which is precisely WHY I'm not buying this theory.
What if the truth is that every MMO that has succeeded under the subscription model has done so because that game - at the time - offered a compelling experience that was not available elsewhere? Looking at MMO history through this model, have games succeeded DESPITE the monthly fee - because players had nowhere else to go to get that particular experience - and not because of it? What portions of the conventional wisdom survive under this alternate model for events, and which fall by the wayside?
Survivors of the Subscription Era
According to MMORPG.com's list of all games by business model, there simply aren't that many MMORPG's with a mandatory subscription fee left on the market. Many are either abandoned veterans that aren't worth the money it would cost to relaunch them or newbies that have yet to prove they can last under a subscription model. Setting aside the 9.1 million subscriber gorilla for a moment, let's look at the highlights:
What about WoW?
All of which brings us back to WoW and the conventional wisdom. At its launch, WoW fit the model to a T - it was the only game on the market offering the virtual world experience to players who wanted to solo or otherwise shed the inflexibility inherent in past group-oriented MMO's. Today, though, every game that launches is derided as a "WoW Clone". What is this dinosaur still doing if a subscription game indeed cannot endure viable competition?
I would suggest that modern WoW offers two things that its contemporaries don't:
Back to the big picture
If the bottom line is that the game, and not the business model, defines success, how have we arrived at the era of the free to play conversion? Entry barriers and flexibility are almost certainly part of the story - it's hard to be so worthless not to be a bargain at some reduced price. For some games, like DDO, it's possible to have such a low profile that the free to play relaunch is actually many gamers' first chance to make a first impression. Moreover, in the early days of the F2P switchover perhaps payment model flexibility was unique enough to be a selling point.
Today, however, many of the games that appear to have failed to compete at the price-level of the monthly fee have all made the switch. Still charging a fee may or may not be a dealbreaker, but it's harder to spin the lack of a fee as a selling point (especially if the "optional" fee is not so optional). In that case, the real question going forward is: When will we see a major F2P relaunch fold? Perhaps not so soon, since many of these titles are owned by larger developers who can keep the lights on relatively indefinitely, especially propped up with a cash shop. Still, if I'm right this question will begin to loom large in the coming years, because there just aren't that many subscription titles left to fail to sustain the subscription model.
What if the truth is that every MMO that has succeeded under the subscription model has done so because that game - at the time - offered a compelling experience that was not available elsewhere? Looking at MMO history through this model, have games succeeded DESPITE the monthly fee - because players had nowhere else to go to get that particular experience - and not because of it? What portions of the conventional wisdom survive under this alternate model for events, and which fall by the wayside?
Survivors of the Subscription Era
According to MMORPG.com's list of all games by business model, there simply aren't that many MMORPG's with a mandatory subscription fee left on the market. Many are either abandoned veterans that aren't worth the money it would cost to relaunch them or newbies that have yet to prove they can last under a subscription model. Setting aside the 9.1 million subscriber gorilla for a moment, let's look at the highlights:
- Eve Online: Poster child for this model, whether it's space piracy, corporation scheming, hardcore PVP, or fully player-driven wars for galactic domination, Eve always has offered something that no other game on the market attempts.
- Rift: Technically speaking, having a well-produced game that sets and meets achievable goals and therefore delivers the most consistent update schedule in the industry isn't part of the in-game experience.
What I'd suggest is unique - based on my experience playing the game and comparing it to the other quest-based MMO's on the market - is the focus on playing with other people. Soloing in Rift is 100% feasible and supported, but it just feels flavorless compared to all the other solo quest MMO's. By contrast, Trion has made it easier than any other game to join groups, and I've had more fun grouping - including while leveling and even healing PUG's - than any other recent MMO I've played.
(Incidentally, if I'm correct, Guild Wars 2 may be a bigger threat to Rift than WoW, since its content is closer to what Trion does well.) - Darkfall: I don't know exactly what their state of financial success is, as the game is currently charging a reduced monthly fee and no price to create an account. Again, though, the game offers hardcore sandbox PVP of a kind that "mainstream" games run screaming from.
- FFXI: Another title where I'm not so informed about current success. In the past, though, this game has been the rear-guard of numerous old school mechanics like harsh death penalties, lengthy travel, and grinding mobs to level, but without the PVP focus of other more sandbox-ish games. (FFXIV is harder to gauge because it only began charging a fee recently.)
- Warhammer Online: At the risk of kicking a game that's down, I'd suggest that this demonstrates the flipside of the model. Things like solo quests, group dungeons, and instanced PVP warfronts would NOT have been enough to sustain a subscription game because there were alternatives with these features on the market in 2009. The unique portion that they did attempt to provide - RVR - proved less than compelling due to incentive and population balance issues.
What about WoW?
All of which brings us back to WoW and the conventional wisdom. At its launch, WoW fit the model to a T - it was the only game on the market offering the virtual world experience to players who wanted to solo or otherwise shed the inflexibility inherent in past group-oriented MMO's. Today, though, every game that launches is derided as a "WoW Clone". What is this dinosaur still doing if a subscription game indeed cannot endure viable competition?
I would suggest that modern WoW offers two things that its contemporaries don't:
- Critical Mass. While diminished by years of attrition, Blizzard's game still has the largest playerbase. The success of Facebook does not mean that any competing social network can succeed simply by fielding a better product because the userbase is part of the value of the product. In some ways, Blizzard's game remains an easy consensus choice because they successfully support the major forms of gameplay - solo, group, raid, PVP - under one roof.
- Production Values. No other game has the luxury of two-year expansion cycles with multiple months of non-NDA'ed public testing. Many MMO's struggle for the resources to support all the major playstyles and ultimately end up doing one or more poorly. It's very possible to fault Blizzard's decisions, and the game does still have the occasional bug or rough edge, but it's hard to fault Blizzard's execution in comparison to the rest of the market.
Back to the big picture
If the bottom line is that the game, and not the business model, defines success, how have we arrived at the era of the free to play conversion? Entry barriers and flexibility are almost certainly part of the story - it's hard to be so worthless not to be a bargain at some reduced price. For some games, like DDO, it's possible to have such a low profile that the free to play relaunch is actually many gamers' first chance to make a first impression. Moreover, in the early days of the F2P switchover perhaps payment model flexibility was unique enough to be a selling point.
Today, however, many of the games that appear to have failed to compete at the price-level of the monthly fee have all made the switch. Still charging a fee may or may not be a dealbreaker, but it's harder to spin the lack of a fee as a selling point (especially if the "optional" fee is not so optional). In that case, the real question going forward is: When will we see a major F2P relaunch fold? Perhaps not so soon, since many of these titles are owned by larger developers who can keep the lights on relatively indefinitely, especially propped up with a cash shop. Still, if I'm right this question will begin to loom large in the coming years, because there just aren't that many subscription titles left to fail to sustain the subscription model.
Musings At The Six-Fold Cap
In my post about re-acquiring the level cap in LOTRO, I failed to mention a minor milestone; I now have eight current max-level characters in six separate MMO's. These are:
WoW: Greenwiz (85 Gnome Mage) and Greenraven (85 Tauren Warrior)
LOTRO: Allarond (75 Human Champion)
Rift: Telhamat (50 High Elf Cleric)
DCUO: Green Armadillo (Level 30 Sorcery Hero)
Star Trek Online: Green Armadillo (50 Federation Engineering) and Narilya (50 KDF Tactical)
SWTOR: Aldabaran (50 Cyborg Trooper)
Allarond just graduated from a shorter list of characters who had previously been max level prior to some previous cap increase. The folks remaining on that list are:
EQ2: Lyriana (90 Fae Dirge - current cap is 92, increased in April 2012)
WoW: Greenhammer (70 Human Paladin, capped during TBC) and Cheerydeth (80 Gnome Death Knight, wiped at the end of the Wrath beta in 2008, but I count her for posterity's sake)
What I did mention was that I expect this achievement to be temporary. LOTRO and WoW both have expansions out in September, Rift has an expansion slated for "fall", SWTOR plans to increase its cap in a patch "this year", and EQ2 (assuming I get back to the cap in the first place) will almost certainly have another expansion this year (though it is unknown whether the cap will rise again). I'm half tempted to focus on EQ2 solely because it may be my last chance to claim seven different MMO's with capped characters for a while to come.
I don't know that there's anything bad about my current plight - indeed, it's probably for the best that games are adding new content. If anything, there may be upsides to having the cap increase more frequently but by smaller numbers of levels (2-5); some games have struggled to generate enough leveling content for larger increases, and many have suffered to come up with any significant changes in the way characters play at higher levels. That said, yet another reason why I'm struggling to find time to try new games (though I'm certainly tempted).
A few random superlatives:
WoW: Greenwiz (85 Gnome Mage) and Greenraven (85 Tauren Warrior)
LOTRO: Allarond (75 Human Champion)
Rift: Telhamat (50 High Elf Cleric)
DCUO: Green Armadillo (Level 30 Sorcery Hero)
Star Trek Online: Green Armadillo (50 Federation Engineering) and Narilya (50 KDF Tactical)
SWTOR: Aldabaran (50 Cyborg Trooper)
Allarond just graduated from a shorter list of characters who had previously been max level prior to some previous cap increase. The folks remaining on that list are:
EQ2: Lyriana (90 Fae Dirge - current cap is 92, increased in April 2012)
WoW: Greenhammer (70 Human Paladin, capped during TBC) and Cheerydeth (80 Gnome Death Knight, wiped at the end of the Wrath beta in 2008, but I count her for posterity's sake)
What I did mention was that I expect this achievement to be temporary. LOTRO and WoW both have expansions out in September, Rift has an expansion slated for "fall", SWTOR plans to increase its cap in a patch "this year", and EQ2 (assuming I get back to the cap in the first place) will almost certainly have another expansion this year (though it is unknown whether the cap will rise again). I'm half tempted to focus on EQ2 solely because it may be my last chance to claim seven different MMO's with capped characters for a while to come.
I don't know that there's anything bad about my current plight - indeed, it's probably for the best that games are adding new content. If anything, there may be upsides to having the cap increase more frequently but by smaller numbers of levels (2-5); some games have struggled to generate enough leveling content for larger increases, and many have suffered to come up with any significant changes in the way characters play at higher levels. That said, yet another reason why I'm struggling to find time to try new games (though I'm certainly tempted).
A few random superlatives:
- Most time spent in groups while leveling: Rift, courtesy of public groups, and later an instance finder - I even healed
- Least time spent in group while leveling: SWTOR and STO - as far as I can recall, none of my capped characters in either game has ever joined a group for any reason (my low level sith warrior alt once took a blind invite from someone who needed a second warm body to collect a datacron).
- Most time in endgame groups: hands down WoW - worth noting that EQ2 is the only other MMO where I've spent significant amounts of time in endgame group content
- Most time in PVP: Other than a few weeks playing a LOTRO Warg back in 2007, WoW is probably the only entrant here.
- Favorite Crafting: EQ2, best crafting-related content
- Favorite minigame/system not already named above: STO Duty Officers
- Favorite Story: LOTRO, they have an unfair advantage in the license, but they have executed well given the opportunity
- Least Memorable Lore: Rift. Unfair I suppose since the competition is Azeroth, Norrath, and a bunch of licensed IP's, but nothing about Telara sticks out in my mind
- Best Races: I'm still inclined to tip the hat to EQ2 here with its selection of scaly and furry races, but I have to admit that WoW is doing about as well these days with the non-Tolkien races. LOTRO has an excuse, but what does everyone else have to say for themselves?
- Lowest Mob Life Expectancy: WoW - even con mobs for your typical kill ten quest are lucky to survive for ten seconds each. It's probably not a coincidence that WoW is the only game where I have a pure ranged character for a main - I'm willing to kite on special occasions, but I find it tedious if that's what I'm doing every mob.
Blizzard's Response to Guild Wars
A few weeks back, I predicted that Blizzard would start the public testing of World of Warcraft's patch 5.0 around the August 28th launch of Guild Wars 2. This seemed like a good bet given Blizzard's responses to Rift in 2010 and Warhammer in 2008. For once, however, Blizzard actually moved faster than I expected. Public testing went live last week, and the expansion now has a September 25th release date. Working backwards, an August 21st launch date for patch 5.0, placing the new expansion's talent revamp and other features in players' hands before Guild Wars 2 can roll out (along with expansions in LOTRO and Rift), looks reasonably likely.
I had a conversation with Spinks and Suicidal Zebra via Twitter about the release possibilities a few weeks ago. I wonder if Blizzard felt they had to get the expansion out with non-zero time remaining in the annual passes of players (like myself) who signed up when the thing was first offered. They never committed to doing so, but having a month of pre-expansion launch event and a month after the expansion arrives within that one-year window is a bit of a difference, since many of us would have paid for that time anyway. Then again, perhaps the portion of the populace who are not annual pass subscribers - most likely the majority despite the surprisingly large number of annual subscribers - are the biggest flight risk.
Other than my lack of interest in Guild Wars 2, I suppose I'd be the kind of relatively inactive annual pass player that they might be targeting with this launch window. I don't know that I would have changed plans based on the date, but I'll definitely to see how my characters fare with the new talent system. As long as I have some Cataclysm-era stuff to wrap up anyway, there's no reason not to wait and combine that with test driving the new systems.
I had a conversation with Spinks and Suicidal Zebra via Twitter about the release possibilities a few weeks ago. I wonder if Blizzard felt they had to get the expansion out with non-zero time remaining in the annual passes of players (like myself) who signed up when the thing was first offered. They never committed to doing so, but having a month of pre-expansion launch event and a month after the expansion arrives within that one-year window is a bit of a difference, since many of us would have paid for that time anyway. Then again, perhaps the portion of the populace who are not annual pass subscribers - most likely the majority despite the surprisingly large number of annual subscribers - are the biggest flight risk.
Other than my lack of interest in Guild Wars 2, I suppose I'd be the kind of relatively inactive annual pass player that they might be targeting with this launch window. I don't know that I would have changed plans based on the date, but I'll definitely to see how my characters fare with the new talent system. As long as I have some Cataclysm-era stuff to wrap up anyway, there's no reason not to wait and combine that with test driving the new systems.
Back at the LOTRO Cap
Not much new to report here, but one minor quirk - because Turbine's model offers free players access to the current level cap, exterior zones, and epic story, it is important that I finish this content now, rather than after the expansion. There's no option not to purchase the new level cap, and therefore no option NOT to advance beyond it until I've run out of content. Ah well, at least it's been a good ride thus far.
The Interactive Novel of Isengard
- LOTRO has always had NPC's involved in soloable portions of the epic story. Even so, this expansion feels like it's increasingly putting the player in larger conflicts involving large numbers of NPC's, presumably in preparation for the battles that are to come in the IP over the next few years.
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| Turbine appears to think this NPC is win for whatever reason. |
- Unfortunately, this setup leans very heavily on instances that actually forbid players to complete it in a group. I realize there are some logistical issues to be managed - how to handle player moral choices, SWTOR style, and how to balance the content - and I haven't joined a LOTRO group in years, but I don't see this as a good thing. In particular, Turbine spent a lot of effort a few years back building a scalable skirmish system but seems reluctant to use it in the story content.
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| Is Tec-Win some form of fighting game combo-breaker that makes this NPC superior to Win? |
- Like most recent quest-based MMO's, the story of each area (in this case, Dunland subzones) is told through lengthy chains of completely linear quests. At least Isengard's epic story explicitly offers the option for players who just want to follow the epic books to skip the side-quests in each area.
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