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:

• 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.

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

Should You Want To Pay?

Should we as players (i.e. consumers) of MMO's want to pay for our games?  Most people who can count will have some level of selfish desire to pay less, get more, and somehow have the developers not go out of business in the process.  That aside, should you want to play a game where you are paying your fair share?  Equally important in the era of non-subscription payment models and cash shops, should you NOT want to play games that are structured in a way where you are not paying much? 

My complaint about SWTOR's new model - which should not be a surprise to longtime readers since I have raised the same objection to several SOE games that have taken a similar approach - is that I actually want to pay them more.  Bioware does not think it's in their interest to allow non-subscribers to pay for a fully unimpaired experience in their product.  If the only two options are to subscribe or suck up quality of life penalties and pay nothing more once I've unlocked the handful of things Bioware is willing to sell, I may just go ahead and freeload.  That's not really the happiest outcome for either myself or Bioware. 

I would argue that studios have done themselves a disservice by hyping the "free" angle on for-profit products that have to make money somehow.  The games can never be completely without cost, and there will always be one restriction that is the most onerous one left no matter how many things the studio relaxes.  (EQ2 may be running into this wall today after several years of doing the dance that SWTOR is doing today.)  Meanwhile, the dual business model creates a variety of expectations, with most non-subscribers misguidedly begrudging every penny and subscribers insisting that their $15 should be the only money anyone is allowed to ever pay and anything more would be "pay to win". 

And so we have the talk of whales, mounts that have gone from $10 outrage to $25 sparkle ponies and perhaps $50 soon, and the ongoing slippery slope of cash shops as studios claim that more revenue is needed and the majority of players rush to say "not it!".  I'm not about to run out and pay hundreds of dollars for premium stuff, but in general I think that players who are not supporting the product can expect to be disappointed with its future direction.  Perhaps the middle ground was the old world in which everyone paid $15 and the developers did whatever they wanted to with the proceeds, but that ship appears to have sailed.  If the result really is a generation of games whose primary revenue stream is catering to the highest cash store bidder, I don't think anyone (other than that one big spender) will be happy with the result.

Currency Caps And Cash Shops

Two indirectly related stories over the last week: SOE has implemented a tradeable in-game time card for Everquest 2, while Bioware is testing SWTOR's free to play model and allowing the resale of most cash shop purchases for in game credits.

Both moves seek to harness the desire of customers with out-of-game money to get a headstart on their in-game finances.  In the process, both moves potentially convert non-paying players into sources of revenue by making their in-game currency into an incentive for the moneyed crowd to pay more to the studio.  However, both are potentially hampered by strict currency caps aimed at preventing legacy subscribers from switching down to less lucrative non-subscription models. 

Both studios invested the money to re-launch existing products with presumably hundreds of thousands of subscribers in the hopes of coming out ahead financially.  Thus, both struggled with how to make an "optional" subscription less optional without alienating the new potential customers coming in under the new model.  Currency caps have stayed on the table as a subscriber-only perk because they fit both bills.  New players are unlikely to hit the restrictions until later in their careers, while existing players who bump up against the caps may already be using enough other services to make the subscription worthwhile.

Allowing players to effectively pay others to farm in-game currency for them calls more attention to players who fall in the middle ground, as this type of option will inherently be most attractive to people who are, for whatever reason, looking to limit their real-world expenditures.  Unfortunately, here is where the business models conflict - a player who can offer only a pittance - 18.4 plat in EQ2 or 350,000 credits in SWTOR - is not much of an incentive for someone else to open their wallet and pay the studio real world dollars. 

It's possible that both studios will ultimately relent on the currency restrictions.  Prior to the announcement, SOE's David Georgeson told me on twitter that they were re-evaluating the game's currency cap - in hindsight, perhaps due to this very concern.  Meanwhile, the Bioware folks are still iterating their model, though the game's senior producer stated that the current escrow functionality was intentional as of two days ago.  Perhaps this sort of continued mishap is just the price of doing business in an era of retrofitting non-subscription business models onto existing games. 

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.

Re-Capped In EQ2

Lyriana finished the newly added Qeynos timeline, and in the process hit level 92 - the EQ2's current cap.  There may have been a small amount of cheating - I took a detour to kill some fishmen in Velious to fill my exp bar to 99.9% prior to turning in the last quest, to ensure that Antonia Bayle would personally award me the final level.  This milestone puts EQ2 back on the list of games in which I currently have max-level characters - for almost two weeks until the fall expansions start launching, I can claim nine max-level characters across seven different MMO's. 

I was decidedly underwhelmed with plans for the Age of Destiny expansion when it was announced.  The "optional" expansion bundled 20 AA's (I currently sit at 311/320) with several features that I didn't really see a need for, but no new content.  I still don't plan to re-roll to try the new class, and I have no particular interest in the game's dungeon designing feature (which has had a mixed record).  However, one feature that I did not expect to get any use out of - NPC mercenaries - makes a lot more sense when presented in context with a level cap increase and new content. 

I still think there is a real concern that the amount of content in the new update may not have been quite enough for a full level/gear reset - in particular, the last two levels would have been much more painful if I didn't have some left-over subscription time, as non-subscribers must send half of their exp gain to AAXP.  Still, the content that they have added continues to be good and the mercenary feature is a big help in getting to see more of it.  Meanwhile, executive producer David Georgeson seems open to at least re-considering some of the non-subscriber issues I've been grousing about, so perhaps some of these will change in the future. 

I have a few in-game goals that may or may not get in this fall.  I'd like to take Lyriana over to the Freeport side to see some of the new content, collect evil-side housing and mercenaries, and incidentally try and fill out that AA cap for the first time ever since I've been playing the game.  Meanwhile, though there are limits to how much time I'm willing to spend on virtual house decoration, my house item situation is actually getting serious enough to merit at least some level of attention.   For now, though, another personal MMO milestone is in the books.

What I'm Currently Working On: EQ2

Seven posts and eight days later, the finale of my annual labor day wrap-up with my latest progress in EQ2.  Maybe next year I will need to do this under twitter rules or something.  :)

A big Troll Merc, a small level 91.5 Fae Dirge

SOE also continued their longtime tradition of double exp for the weekend, and I picked up 3 AA (currently 310/320) and about half of level 91->92.  A few weeks ago, I had mostly written off the possibility of getting to level capped characters in seven different MMO's simultaneously - with the delay of LOTRO's expansion from this week and WoW's expansion not slated to arrive until the end of the month, I now have a legitimate shot of making the seventh ding happen.

Still on the slate for the next couple of months are plans to switch factions - possibly twice - to check out some of the changes to the game's evil side (and the other bard subclass).  Sometime in November, I run out of game time that was purchased through the strangely short-sighted sale promotion stacking, so the next expansion will almost certainly have a far greater price tag (for both the expansion and the game time that seems required to take advantage of it).  Time will tell where this game sits on my list when the dust settles. 

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. 

Aggressive Marketing Vs. Content and Convenience

No Content For Station Cash
As Wilhelm's analysis notes, SOE is getting out of the business of allowing Station Cash to pay for anything that was previously worth paying for under the old subscription model - no expansions or other content and no subscription fees.   They are fully entitled to do this.  Indeed, it's puzzling that they are just now noticing that Station Cash sales were reducing the cost of their product - I'm pretty sure that February 2010's Sentinel's Fate expansion was available for Station Cash (after the one-week retail exclusive window).  As Bhagpuss notes, they even managed to announce it properly and in advance.  (On the downside, they just learned that lesson the hard way, but at least they learned it rather than repeat it.)

The last time I took part in a triple Station Cash sale, sometime around April, I was on the fence about whether to purchase $15 or $20 worth of credit.  I elected the latter, rather than fund the stuff I wanted to purchase out of my existing balance - I figured that I would likely use the extra SC to pay for content or game time in either EQ2 or DCUO.

Having learned that this month is my last chance to spend the SC on content, I elected to call the $5 a relatively cheap reminder of what happens when you purchase more virtual currency than you have immediate plans to spend.  I cut my losses and grabbed three DCUO DLC packs that I may not ever use, rather than continue to hold a SC balance that increasingly cannot be used to buy anything that I want.

Aggressive Marketing
As Spinks kindly noticed, just last week I was rambling about whether the DLC model for MMO's is actually sustainable.  I'll be the first to concede that paying SOE $20 for all of the paid content they added to both of the two SOE games I played over the course of a year certainly does not fall into the sustainable category.  That said, I'd have more sympathy for their desire to receive an honest day's pay for an honest day's work if it weren't for their own self-inflicted and self-described "aggressive" marketing practices.

The problem is that the cost of Station Cash item can vary by more than six-fold if you stack a triple station cash promotion with a 50% off sale and a Walmart-exclusive point card bonus.  Players did not create that situation, and you don't see SOE similarly crying about the need to "protect the revenue they need to offset costs" of the mounts and vanity items they will continue to offer in the SC store for nominal prices that exceed $10 per item per character.

To preserve this "aggressive" regime, they are cutting off the ability to pay with store-bought cards.  To my knowledge, EQ2's most recent expansion was not offered in retail stores (presumably due to the retail cut), so SC was one of the last avenues available for those who don't want to provide a company that got hacked last year with their credit cards.  They're also removing a mechanism for price discrimination by players like myself who don't play enough to justify $220 annually in expansion and subscription fees but who would otherwise be happy to support the product.  Given how thin this year's content is, I'll be hard pressed to justify yet another $40 expansion box - potentially the third in 20 months - this fall if I have to pay full price.

P.S. In a mostly unrelated story, Bioware's single player DLC division has some commentary on how successful the model is  - the comments have a distinct feel that people who don't like it are out of luck because every single player game will be diverting content from the release game to paid DLC within five years. 

A Reset Too Far

Lyriana hit level 91, leaving her a single level - about 1.4 million exp - away from EQ2's current level cap.  Armed with bonuses from vitality and veteran status, I'm pulling down 8000 exp per quest completion and a few hundred exp per mob.  This could take a while.

The last time EQ2 raised its level cap, back in 2010's The Sentinel's Fate (TSF) expansion, SOE provided only two overland zones for an increase of ten levels - the previous ten-level increase had added four overland zones.  This resulted in some absurd quest design, in which one hub awards nine quest completes for killing seven mobs just to hand out more quest exp.  Even with this extreme measure, players were level 90 within hours of the expansion launch.  The irony was that TSF had a variety of factions and repeatable quests solo players could have used to earn reputation.  It would have been a far better expansion with a smaller cap increase (2-5) and a faction curve that allowed solo players to continue leveling as they worked on daily quests.

(Last year's Destiny of Velious expansion did not raise the cap, despite adding two overland zones, and, again, offered robust endgame daily quest options.  This expansion too could have come with a few levels that continue into the daily quest grind.) 

The game's current cap increase - two levels - came with a single overland zone.  This should have been fine, except for a minor problem - an aggressive gear reset obsoleted every single piece of content that existed in the game prior to the current patch (other than an extreme hard-mode raid that was only marginally more rewarding than current, easier content).  As a result, all the factions I failed to complete last expansion are no longer worthwhile.  In their place is a single daily quest - once per day I can do a single dungeon (assisted by my mercenary) in exchange for a piece of random level 92 gear.  There are some other repeatable quests in the new zone, but these are pretty much pointless, as there are no factions or items associated with them - effectively, you're just grinding exp. 

There are some things I can do to speed the journey along.  I have some veteran reward potions stashed away, I probably still earn non-zero amounts of exp from last expansions' content (even if I no longer need the rewards), and I can always betray and/or mentor down.  (Or even group.)  That said, it does seem unusually wasteful to cast aside so much content, with so little to take its place. 

Scaling And Novel Loot

Like many players, I have been quick to complain about the gear treadmill - how MMOs focus on the acquisition of gear that increases arbitrary stats by arbitrary amounts, only to have the increases canceled out by corresponding improvements in the stats of the enemy.  The story of class foci in EQ2 goes to show that the alternatives aren't that much easier.

Last year, I picked up two major upgrades that go beyond mere numbers - the bonus from my epic class weapon and a pair of boots that removed the cost from a key buff, allowing my buff-based class to cast 20% more buffs.  This week I logged in to find the same pair of boots missing the focus effect.

The boots when I got them

The problem, as I noted at the time, was that this bonus was so large that it became mandatory on future gear upgrades.  When April's patch increased the level cap, along with a full gear reset, SOE went in and added a generic class focus stat that effectively says "your class buff here" on every piece of gear you loot.  This was pretty much pointless, so the system got another overhaul in this month's patch.  Now the foci are an inherent part of your character, earned as you level, and there's correspondingly one fewer line of text on every piece of gear in the game.

The boots today, with the key effect moved to my class focus tab (the random stat buffs are doled out to replace a separate portion of the focus system, which was tossed because there was generally only one sensible choice)

In some ways, this is a win for players.  A key mechanic is available earlier in the level progression, and we have neither the irritating scenario of having to find groups for old content (still required for the epic weapon bonus, at least for now) nor the absurdity of having the same stat assumed to be on every piece of gear in the game.  That said, the major thing that made certain pieces of gear somewhat unique and desirable is gone, leaving only arbitrary quantities of arbitrary stats.

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:

• 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.

In an unrelated story, MMOGC has a post up today along similar lines.

Free to Pay SOE's Way

SOE often rolls out bonus exp on major holidays, and July 4th was no exception in EQ2.  I took Lyriana for a spin through the middle part of the Withered Lands, the game's latest high level solo content.  I've used up about 2/3 of the content from this new zone - ONLY playing when double exp is active - but I'm only a quarter of the way to the new level cap.   

Endgame EQ2 (not) for the Non-subscriber
That said, I'm not complaining about the quantity of solo content.  The idea that leveling content needs to get you to the level cap matters when the player is trying to get to the cap as a prerequisite for doing something (notably group content).  If your solo endgame is daily quests, there's no particular reason (until the next expansion arrives and gear resets wipe out all the rewards for the old dailies) why you can't have the player continue to gain exp and levels while doing the daily quests.  Meanwhile, this lengthens the exp curve in a way that hopefully left some more room for groups to advance at rates that do not trivialize the cap increase. 

Rather, my issue is with SOE's AA slider, which can only be adjusted by subscribers.  If I did not happen to have a subscription to the game thanks to some poorly thought-out promotions (I paid about $20 for the expansion and 6 months game time due to Station Cash sales), I would be even further from the cap, with half of my exp going towards AA that barely offer anything to my character. 

A non-subscriber in my shoes would also be struggling for the money to pay my mercenary (an "optional" feature from the "optional" expansion, though the new content seems suspiciously designed to make a mercenary highly beneficial) since nonsubscribers are barred from looting a single copper until they are just about broke -under 18 plat.  For reference, hiring the merc costs 5 plat, and he takes a quarter of a plat every 30 minutes, and every time he needs to be resummoned due to death or dismissal. 

Alternatives to the subscription, or just an extended trial?
Longtime readers will know that I'm not afraid to spend money on my MMO hobby - so far in 2012 alone I've spent money on five separate MMO's (not counting stuff unlocked using cash store currencies that I paid for last year).  In fact, I am willing to pay MORE total dollars in exchange for greater flexibility in when and how I can play.  Instead of flexibility, however, SOE requires the same old rigid billing cycle that they pretend to be working to change. 

Indeed, with Vanguard's upcoming free-to-play change they're not even offering a premium non-subscription tier and the game's producer describes their philosophy as "offering more flexible options for every type of player".   How are they offering more flexibility?  By determining that it is "in the best interest of our players to eliminate the Silver membership and instead provide primarily a Gold membership offering".  If I wanted the flexibility of paying a monthly fee to subscribe to Vanguard, I could have done so without SOE spending however much money on revamping the game.

Ironically, SOE lost this round because it took their accounting people six months to address a Station Cash pricing loophole that was immediately obvious to players the moment it was announced.  With that issue fixed, SOE has unified its catalog under a model in which they give away most of their content but refuse to offer a viable non-subscription alternative for continuing to pay for their service.  Perhaps this makes me a "content locust", but I'm not likely to pay people who don't offer what I want to purchase, no matter how much stuff they try to give away as an incentive. 

P.S. In other news that is going on around the same time, see Wilhelm's commentary on the announcement that Brad McQuaid has been brought back to the Vanguard team.

Canada Day Resolutions For 2012

Another half year has gone by, and Canada's national holiday remains well positioned for a mid-year look at my New Year's Resolutions.  Let's see how things have gone.

WoW (Pre-Pandaria)

• Complete quests of Cataclysm: I'm still not finished with Hyjal, Twilight Highlands, or Firelands on my main - I tend to work on dailies first, and there are enough dailies that I haven't gotten around to these.
• Finish out armor set from 4.3 heroics
• Use the raid finder to kill Deathwing
• Cap out TBC-era dungeon reputations: Most of these rep's stalled out at Revered when the content was new.  Two expansions later, these heroics are quick and easy rep farming.

These have gone remarkable as predicted.  As of now, I have completed the quests of Hyjal and Twilight Highlands, I have beaten the raid finder, and five-man dungeons hold no more loot for me.  I have not yet completed the Firelands storyline, primarily because it's gated by daily quests.  I also have a way to go with both Therazane and Wildhammer factions.  Overall, if the sun sets on the Cataclysm era, I won't have many regrets in terms of goals.

Pandaria, on the other hand, seems poised to arrive no earlier than late August and possibly as late as October, with Blizzard's announcement that the expansion cinematic will be unveiled on August 16th.  Not exactly what I was hoping to hear, though I suppose I should have known better to hope that Blizzard could manage an expansion in a "mere" 20 months. Meanwhile, I suppose I might as well go on the record now and predict that the 5.0 PTR will hit within a few days of the 28 August Guild Wars 2 launch, since that's how Blizzard always does it. 


LOTRO

• Reach the new level cap on my main (currently 67 of 75)
• Don't feel obliged to "save" content for future level cap increases

LOTRO is an odd duck out this year.  I'm currently at level 70, halfway though the new levels for the Isengard expansion even though I'm only just barely into its content.  I would really like to finish the remaining content before the next expansion so that I'm not once again forced to choose between skipping high quality content and outleveling the new stuff.   Unfortunately, LOTRO never quite seems to make it to the top of my plate.  I plan to work on this one sometime over the summer.


Rift

• Finally reach the level cap
• Investigate the endgame

I did reach the level cap, but I continue to find the game's solo content (and especially the dailies) underwhelming.  The lore has failed to make any impression on me, and solo combat feels like it drags out - probably intentional so that the second and further players in a leveling group actually have something to do.  As an aside, I'd rate this game as probably the best out there if you're spending most of your time in a group (small or raid) of folks you know, but unfortunately that's not me.

I'd say that the monthly fee is what is holding me back, but I've actually got a time card in my back pocket and I haven't even been tempted to use it.  Perhaps with the new expansion?

EQ2

• Enjoy world events on my main without having to subscribe
• Try to complete current dungeon content
• Betray to the evil side to see content, collect houses, perhaps try the Troubadour

This entire heading was somewhat blindsided by the surprise decision to raise the level cap in April's game update.  As far as I can tell, this is the new content that wasn't ready in time to be included in the "optional" expansion last fall - it feels quite a bit like it was balanced for players who have access to "optional" mercenaries.  Fortunately, I was able to abuse the triple station cash + SC store sale loophole to pick up the expansion and six months worth of game time (a loophole they have finally closed, albeit with typical poor communication) for $20.  Sometime between now and November I'd like to reach the new cap and also betray over to the evil side to test drive troubadour (probably betraying back to good and Dirge before the gold time runs out). 


DCUO

• Gear my main up for DLC content
• Work on one or more alts to see the other storylines

After hitting the level cap, this game has largely fallen off my plate.  The focus of the game is grinding group content for gear, and, unlike most MMO's, SOE has thus far stuck with strict tiering requirements.  New DLC content continues to strictly require gear from the old instances - even the solo content in the DLC I paid for can't be accessed without grinding gear in PUGs that frankly don't want players like myself in their groups.  Oh well, at least I can spend my SC in SOE's other offerings.  

SWTOR

• Play one or more storylines

So far, so good, Trooper story complete, Sith Warrior in progress. I will almost certainly do the Agent story next, since that's a well-regarded plot that covers an additional class buff archetype, allows the Chiss race, and would also let me try a class that can heal.  I could hypothetically chart a course through all eight class stories, but I'm not inclined to go quickly, with new legacy options potentially opening up over time.

Star Trek Online

• "By the time the dust settles, there will probably be at least a dozen major MMO's I haven't played that originally launched as subscription games - I could literally try a different one every month for 2012."

I'm nowhere near a dozen, but I have one in Star Trek Online. Ironically, the main reason why I tried it when I did was because of an anniversary promo for an Odyssey-class cruiser that I eventually cashed in and christened the U.S. Faydwer.  I'm definitely spending much less time in game now, but there were enough unique things about this game that I'm glad I took the time to try it out.

Other MMO's
DDO is perennially in this category, because I'm still sitting just shy of level 8 on my highest level character.  Everyone gets a free respec as part of the new expansion, but there are also a fair number of things that got blown up - changes to hit and spell mechanics, with more changes to the entire enhancement system yet to come.  DDO is very unforgiving when it comes to respecs - for the most part they are cash store only - so I'm inclined to wait and see what happens with the enhancement revamp before I mess with any characters, new or old.

I've also spent about an evening each in Aion, EQ1, and the Secret World Beta.  I haven't really played Runes of Magic, in which I have a mid-level character and which now offers a new race with new classes.  I will probably try Mechwarrior Online when it goes live for the free-to-play masses. Vanguard is going free to play, though I didn't exactly stick with it when I paid for access last year. 

Beyond all of that, I hesitate to predict what other MMO's I may or may not try over the year.  I have a fair number of clients for free to play games that I have yet to try installed on my computer.  I'm not chomping at the bit to be first in line for either Secret World or Guild Wars 2.  The bottom line continues to be that any new game is really going to have to fight for more than a one night trial on my current schedule.

PS3
So far, I've finished off Assassin's Creed II, Arkham City (though I enjoyed this enough to try it again on the higher "new game plus" difficulty, which allows use of all the bat-gadgets from the beginning), and a chunk of the Tomb Raider trilogy.  The push for Uncharted 3... did not end so well.  Other games on my playlist include Infamous 2, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, followed by Revelations (and eventually followed by ACIII), and perhaps FFXIII-2.

PC Building
I did indeed build my first desktop gaming PC this winter.   Overall, it's been a pretty big success so far.  I am still running with an old graphics card salvaged from my old desktop, primarily because it doesn't seem to have any problems with any of the games I'm playing.  I'm in wait-and-see mode on the nVidia GTX 660/660Ti, which will supposedly blow the current mid-range cards out of the water - or at least drive their prices down dramatically, such that I could snag an upper-mid-range card.  I'd be in more of a hurry on this front except that I just am not finding that I need the increased performance on any games that I play. 

The Blog
I published 84 posts in the first half of the year, which continues a bit of a downward trend.  I haven't hit 15 posts in a month since February.  Part of that trend may be that I stuck with both STO and SWTOR beyond the points in either game where I have significant new things to say about them on a near-daily basis.  Part of it is longer posts like this one.  And part is life - a trend that I don't expect to change (in fact, quite the contrary).

In any case, thank you for reading, happy Canada Day to our neighbors in the True North, Strong and Free, and here's to the rest of the year!

Odds and Ends

A handful of tidbits from the last week and a half or so, none of which got written up because none was that exciting.

• I now own a level 3 character in EQ1.  Yes, the original.  SOE is running another promo in which all players will be rewarded with Station Cash if enough people spam enough of their friends to increase the follower count.  ULLSXLQXU2  On the downside, someone in accounting finally realized that people were using promotional and deeply discounted Station Cash to buy subscription time and removed this option, but at least I can apply this towards the next EQ2 expansion.
  
• A riddle for your consideration:  I have something that I was given in order to share it with a friend.  I can't say what it is, I can't say why I have it, and people who don't need it can't say that they don't need it.  Can you solve The Secret? 
  
• Last week was Darkmoon Faire week in Azeroth, so I signed on to snag the monthly tickets from the monthly profession quests.  This felt like a really small number of tickets, but I double checked and confirmed that no, the numbers have been that low since the thing got off the test server.  If there is a nerf conspiracy coming, it hasn't arrived yet.  EU2TMXWJX5 

Meanwhile, my SWTOR server apparently just went eligible for "transferring everyone off but not calling it a merge" status, time to go take care of that.  I'll hold my commentary until we get the final numbers, but the sheer number of servers with one-way transfers off is far greater than I was anticipating.

The Shortening MMO Retention Curve

Psychochild writes:

"Raph Koster has pointed out that big MMOs follow fairly predictable growth curves. The fact there's been a drop so far so fast means that curve has gotten shorter, or the curve has changed dramatically. Neither is a positive sign for traditional MMOs."

I wonder if Koster's famous graph from 2007 was the last point in history in which the model worked. 

I stayed with WoW raiding through 2006 despite generally low satisfaction because where else was I going to go?  LOTRO wasn't out yet, nor had EQ2 completed the Rise of Kunark era revamp that made it accessible to solo players.  If solo play was a substantial part of your gaming, it was WoW or bust through mid-2007. 

I've never seen hard numbers for what happened over the summer of 2007, but Blizzard made a dramatic shift towards "accessibility" starting in the fall of that year.  I don't think it's a coincidence that this change in emphasis coincided with Blizzard's first real competition for the solo demographic and their revenue. 

By contrast, a dissatisfied customer today almost certainly has one or more alternatives (unless, of course, they're focused on open world PVP, sandbox games or other things that don't fit in the "theme park" model) - as Psychochild points out, this includes increasingly high-production-value single player games.  Moreover, recent history suggests that it is very rarely a good investment of your time and money to stick with a game that launches in an unsatisfactory state.  Games that ship unfinished are very likely to do poorly enough to force layoffs that ensure that they never get finished. 

It's easy for us talking heads who spend time writing about games on blogs instead of playing games to admonish our peers for failing to "support" innovation.  In reality, we're customers, not investors, and it is very unlikely that our one purchase, or even several hundred purchases, are going to make or break a game's success in a way that shapes future development.  As a blogger I might prefer to see any and all games succeed, but as a consumer I can't in good conscience recommend throwing money at something you aren't enjoying just because it has some trait you would like to encourage.   That may indeed be a non-positive sign for the market, but I don't see it changing anytime soon.

Lowering The Price of EQ2

In EQ2, SOE has the dubious distinction of developing the only major MMO that I otherwise enjoy playing but routinely do not play due to their business model antics.  That said, a questionable business model attached to a product that is worth playing is one sale away from being a done deal.

This weekend is a 50% rebate sale on EQ2's Station Cash store, which includes expansion packs and non-recurring paid subscriptions.  This is not an especially great time to buy Station Cash - a double SC sale, which happens more frequently, lets you pay half as much for the SC you want, while a rebate sale requires you to pay the regular price and gives you SC back afterwards.  It is, however, a spectacular time to SPEND Station Cash.

A few weeks ago, I decided to spend $20 for 6000 SC at the last triple SC sale - enough to cover the 4000 SC expansion and a one month non-recurring subscription for 1500 SC so I wouldn't need to start paying for gear unlocks again until I hit the new level cap.  For some reason, though, I held back on spending the SC after paying for it.  My patience paid off.

That $20, tripled and then instant-rebated, bought me the $40 expansion, three months of subscription status (3897 SC) and still over 2000 SC left from the most recent purchase (4352 total counting a previous balance).  The tough call now is whether to extend my subscription out from August through November (leaving me with around 2000 SC left after the rebate) or hold onto the balance in anticipation of being charged 4000 SC for another expansion in December.

Anyway, PSA: If you already have SC and are looking to buy stuff in EQ2's store, this is a good weekend to do so.

SOE: Anyone mind if we shoot that other guy over there who isn't you?

When EQ2 went free to play, certain gameplay-effecting items were removed from the old EQ2X cash shop.  The promise was that these would only be returned after considering the desires of the community through in-game polling, and SOE further promised to disclose the results publicly.

The poll has finally arrived, and features questions on how players feel about self-res items and cash store potions.  Each item is broken out into two questions - if the player is okay if the items can only be used solo and if the player is okay if the item can also be used in raids. 

Most reasonable people can probably agree that these items are less problematic if you keep them out of content that is actually balanced to be challenging - where their use would feel more mandatory.  However, setting up the poll in this way is designed to get a specific result - i.e. substantially higher acceptance of the items as long as they're kept out of groups, where a straight up "are you in favor of this item" would have drawn more "no" answers due to the group concern. 

More to the point, this poll gives everyone an equal voice on a topic that has dramatically unequal consequences.  In this particular case, there are probably substantial numbers of non-raiders who can agree that having these items is problematic.  However, imagine for a minute that the results do go in the other direction.  Imagine that about 10% of the playerbase raids and that 90.01% of the votes in the poll are for allowing the use of the items in raids as well.  Would anyone outside SOE's marketing department be comfortable using those results to claim overwhelming popular support for the potions? 

At the end of the day, the deck remains stacked against SOE because this is a non-random poll sample - players who want a specific result have an incentive to sign on to vote (and get their friends to do the same).  SOE also claims that this is a "poll" and not a "vote".  Even so, presenting data that lumps in the opinions of players who are not affected by the decision with those who are is misleading, and a tactic that only makes sense if the marketing goal is to obtain a more favorable result. 

The Tough 2012 Schedule Continues

I hadn't really planned on spending the better part of two months working on the level cap in Star Trek Online, which has probably another month or so left of content in the game between missions on my Federation and Klingon characters.  This detour, marking the fifth MMO where I have a current level capped character - only drives home a point about how crowded the MMO marketplace is these days.

• In LOTRO, I'm still working on Enedwaith, the pre-expansion content prior to the Isengard expansion.  Remaining in front of me are the entire Isengard expansion (which I already own access to) and the newly released pre-expansion content for this fall's Rohan expansion (which I would have to purchase with Turbine Points).  I hate to skip content in this game given that it's both high quality and relatively limited in quantity compared to other games.  That said, I'm already way over-level for Isengard as a result (currently 68 and climbing).  I'd say that finishing all of this content before Rohan hits is a top priority so that I can do the next expansion at the correct level. 
  
• EQ2 is rolling out a new zone next month with a two level increase to the game's cap.  While I continue to have misgivings about the direction this game is going, this content is effectively free to me, as I have enough Station Cash to pay for unlocking the new gear that will mostly likely come with the inevitable gear reset. 
  
• While I see no reason to be present for the inevitable week or so of bugs and issues with SWTOR's patch 1.2, that game remains high on my to do list.  I'm also still waiting for a graphics card, but again, high on my list.
  
• Diablo III lands on May 15th, and, well-advised or not, I own access to this thing on launch day courtesy of the WoW annual pass.  It also seems reasonably likely that the Pandaria beta will kick off at some point in the near future (less clear is how quickly annual pass customers will get in), though that was a comparatively small consideration in my annual pass purchase, and I never intended to spend large amounts of time on this.  I do expect to continue to duck into Azeroth proper intermittently, and have a larger chunk of time penciled in for after the expansion launches. 
  
• DDO's expansion lands in mid summer.  Realistically, I don't own a max level character in DDO, and I'm not near owning a max level character in DDO, so this is relatively a non-issue, but the emerging hoopla only reminds me that this game continues to be somewhere on my to do list. 
  
• Games where I have max level characters not yet mentioned in this post and no immediate plans include DCUO (where I have some shared Station Cash balance with EQ2) and Rift (where I have a pending time card). 
  
• Free to play or newly free to play games currently on my radar include Lineage 2, Aion, Allods, and possibly Forsaken World (or one of the other Perfect World F2P titles).  Major AAA releases scheduled for the remainder of the year include Guild Wars 2, Tera, Secret World, Wildstar, whatever they're calling Prime/Dominus these days, and Copernicus/Amalur. 

Overall, it's a pretty good time to be an MMO player, other than the potential for crippling indecision, and a really tough time to be competing for a share of players' attention.

You Are What You Sell

It seems these days that you can learn a lot about a game by examining what exactly it is in the business of selling.  MMO Studios are by their own admission still working out the kinks of non-subscription models.  One of these questions is what exactly the developer should be adding when they're making money off of what sells, where the more traditional subscription model would have been more concerned with what has an overall effect on the game experience.

• As I mentioned yesterday, STO expanded its duty officer system in a way that expands the need for new types of officers that weren't previously in the game.  This sells more duty officer slot unlocks, possibly more inventory unlocks, and potentially the random duty officer packs in the cash shop.
• After not having any new high level content in the November paid expansion box, the EQ2 team is rolling out a new zone with an increase in level cap in April's content patch.  A higher cap presumably means a complete gear reset, which means more gear unlock tokens for the non-subscriber. 
• Part of DDO's expansion pre-order rollout is a new tome that persists through true resurrection and offers a hefty experience boost - a tome that's also available in the DDO store for a whopping 1595 Turbine Points.  (Regular tomes that boost stats have also been changed to persist through true reincarnation.)  The presale packs also include existing content.  It appears that Turbine sees the sale of content - and additional trips through that content on new characters (including the new class) - as one of the big draws of their game.  (In fairness, the wide-open class system does make this a selling point.)
• When I look at something like Aion's free to play rollout with funny acronyms and nebulous details, I'm puzzled about what exactly it is they are selling (and why anyone would buy it). 

At the risk of picking on SOE (who seem to have an unfortunate habit of running into major issues that can't reasonably be blamed on the actual developers, such as their parent corporation selling the rights to the European service to a random German company or last year's hacking debacle), the catch is more with what does not get done.  Yes, EQ2's new patch has a fair amount of stuff in it, but the game is also now down to three scheduled updates this year - barely above Blizzard's notorious slow pace, but Blizzard's base releases have way more content to start with. 

The issue is that it is very hard to show any short term return on the marginal investment of putting more effort towards content patches.  By contrast, it's very easy to show increased revenue from adding some new microtransaction or whatnot.  You can eventually do enough damage to your brand name to affect player retention - Eve did this in a very short span last year, while I'd suggest the state of EQ2 has been more of a slow drain that is much harder to note on a budget spreadsheet. 

By contrast, we do still have the last subscription titles standing - WoW, Rift and SWTOR primarily - that are sticking to the model of selling game time and nothing else that affects gameplay.  Item shop purchases remain largely optional, while game boxes only go down in price over time - the fee is the one constant in this world, for better or worse. None of which is to say that this model is more democratic - it's hard to show a specific reason for a marginal drop in subscriber numbers in the same way that it's hard to "vote against" a cash store purchase that people other than yourself are buying. 

What exactly is your game of choice selling?  Is it something that you are happy purchasing, or, if not, do you feel that the game may be going in a direction you don't like because you are not the source of its income?