New Beginnings, Old Character Slot Limits

WoW's Cataclysm launch events kicked off last week with a pair of new stories explaining how the gnomes and the trolls finally get their hometowns back from the low level mobs that have been occupying them for six years.  The beta has new introductory voiceovers for all of the existing races, and presumably other changes like these events will mean a lot of new low level content.  My guess is that you're going to need anywhere from 2-4 new alts to see the 20-60 leveling content, and as many as 10-12 new alts if there are significant changes to the 1-20 content.  To the best of my knowledge, WoW's per server character limit will remain at 10. 

There are sound technical reasons for character limits - data storage is not entirely free for one thing.  Even so, there is a distinct possibility that Cataclysm will test the limits of character slots per server on a scale that has never happened before in an MMO.  The stakes are non-trivial; many longtime players have high level alts occupying all of their slots - some folks have all 10 level 80's.  If you're forced to move to another server, you leave behind heirlooms (I'll have over a dozen when I decide what to spend my existing currency balances on) and social ties to your existing guild (which will also lose out on guild exp for your new alts). 

I suppose there is a bit of a silver lining opportunity here.  All of us probably know someone who plays on another server, and perhaps the Cataclysm is the time to pay them a visit.  It's just going to be interesting to see whether we're going to see disruptive player migration when the new content meets the old character cap.

Bonus event commentary: "da druids, we been layin' low".  Yes, we've seen various troll mobs that can shapeshift, but they have always referred to themselves as Priests of a specific animal loa.  Until now, I can't remember a Troll who has actually called themselves a druid, or displayed the ability to change into more than one different kind of creature.  This is why I don't take lore seriously as an argument to justify game design decisions - it's a fictional construct that can and will break as early and often as the developers want it to. 

Self-Reinforcing Purchase Refusal

One of the features in DDO's next patch is a new raid, aimed at level six players (a third of the way to the game's cap of 20).  I'm concerned that the game's business model might get in the way of what they're trying to accomplish. 

Devil Assault In the Details
The stated purpose of the raid is for low level players to learn what raiding is like, in the hopes that they will want to continue.  Unlike many other games out there, completing the low level raids while leveling in DDO can be highly rewarding if you are able to find level-appropriate groups.  The problem is that the new introductory raid will NOT be free content.  It will, instead, be bundled in with the unpopular Devil Assault adventure, which is so underutilized that many players (myself included) never got around to purchasing it even at a price of $1.50.  The old adventure has been taken off the market until October's update, presumably because the new price will be higher. 

The issue that this particular raid has - and, indeed, any model in which the player gets flexibility into what content they have to pay for - is that the decision NOT to purchase the content is self-reinforcing.  When content requires a group to complete, the value of that content depends on the number of players there are who want to run that content with you.  That number of players will drop as the price increases. 

If the price gets as high as $4.50 - a possibility, as the last three adventure packs have come in at that price, albeit with much more content than one adventure no one wants and a raid - it will be very hard to recommend purchasing access to this new content to anyone who would be missing the numerous more versatile adventure packs in this level range.  In particular, anyone who is not that interested in raiding will - and should - stay far away.  That defeats the stated purpose of the content - introducing these same players to the raid game.   

Offering a deal they hope players will refuse?
In general, the idea of paying for only the content that you personally are going to use has a certain degree of fairness to the consumer.  However, you do not want to create a situation where players miss out on content that they would have enjoyed (and hopefully paid for in the future) because they called the developer's bluff on pricing. 

If it costs extra to try something that you already think you're not going to be interested in, you've not going to bother.  The catch is that you might be wrong - even after half a dozen MMO's, I routinely guess completely wrong on what classes I will like in a new game - and in that case you'd be missing out.  Meanwhile, the developers lose because their efforts at providing a new on ramp are wasted, and the other players (raiders in this example) lose because their "newbie hose" dries up. 

If that's where the business model is headed, the business model needs some work. 

To Rent Or Buy The New LOTRO

LOTRO's free to play headstart kicked off yesterday with relatively few issues.  Allarond is alive, well, and mostly as I left him. As a former subscriber character, all restrictions on trait slots, bags, currency, and mounts remain lifted.  He also retains free access to the two current expansions, including most of the game's endgame group content.  More importantly, I can now drop in for social calls with my kinship and world events without having to subscribe for an entire month in order to do so. 

To Rent or Buy?

Note that the "unlock" costs $2.50 PER HOUR. Realistically, I'd call swift travel a subscriber only option.

Though new options are always a good thing, I cannot recommend LOTRO's non-subscription service in the same terms that I endorse DDO's version of the model.

It is possible to get from the end of the free starter areas (approx level 20) to the start of the first paid expansions (Moria, at 50, and Mirkwood at 60 are non-optional purchases even for subscribers) without paying, provided you are willing to grind for Turbine Points at a rate of pennies per hour.  However, non-subscribers will be trying to get by with less content, no rested exp, and longer travel times due to the lack of swift travel.  Your gaming experience will be less fun, and your character will end up worse off for missing easily obtained quest and explorer deeds in the zones that you choose not to purchase.

My advice to a new player looking to get the best bang for their buck out of this game would be:

1. Level to 20 in the starter areas, going to farm deeds in the other racial zones if you run out of quests.
2. While you do this, order a retail box of the Moria expansion, currently available online for under $10.   Do not activate this key until you're done with the newbie areas, so you can have your full month of subscription time to work on areas you don't already own.
3. The moment you log in while subscribed, you permanently unlock all restrictions on traits, bags, and gold for that character.  (Collectively, these cost far more than the $10 to unlock.)  You can also complete the in-game quest to unlock the riding trait once you're level 20, unless you hate that quest badly enough to pay Turbine several dollars not to have to do it. 
4. Spend the month of VIP time working on quests and deeds in the Lone Lands.  This will give you an idea of how long each zone will last.  If you clear out the Lone Lands in a week or two, buying content by the zone is probably not for you.  Otherwise, if you're halfway or more through when your month runs out and you choose NOT to resubscribe, you can probably skip buying the Lone Lands and instead purchase some other zone (North Downs or maybe Evendim). 

Note that game time cards are available online for significantly less than $15/month, and that Turbine is continuing to offer the $30/3 month subscription as of now.  Subscribers receive 500 TP per month on your bill date, regardless of how you pay.

If you sign up for a three month sub after the Moria box subscription runs out and save all your points, you should have enough on hand to buy the Mirkwood expansion when you need to raise the level cap to 65.  Moreover, the expansions include all of the level 50-65 content; if you can get from level 20 to level 50 during the four months of VIP time, you can let your subscription lapse and ultimately reach the level cap with both expansions purchased for something like $40 out of pocket. 

Paid Travel

Fun Fact: Turbine apparently prefers that you not screenshot their prices. To get around this, I had to open up the store window and then click outside it in the game world to re-enable the screenshot key.

One final thing I will note is the addition of two types of paid maps to the Turbine store.  One type are consumables that will teleport you to various locations in the game.  Apparently the "lore" that says that only Hunters and Wardens get to teleport around at will is for sale if you're prepared to slip Turbine a buck or two under the table. 

The other maps, more interestingly, offer an alternative to the game's racial and reputation teleport spell system.  Players have always been able to supplement their hearthstone-equivalent with a racial trait that sends you back to your racial home city.  More recent patches have added reputation rewards for other locations (I believe on a shared cooldown, though I have yet to earn any of these).  Now you can purchase maps for any of these locations (including the home cities of other races) in the LOTRO Store.

Subscribers may or may not care about these options due to swift travel.  That said, the map to Rivendell (for non-elves, elves would want Bree instead) is a huge perk for non-subscribers, or really anyone leveling a character in any of the adjacent zones (Trollshaws, Misty Mountains, Eregion).  Though LOTRO has some quests that use excessive travel just to pad out completion time, my bigger complaint is usually when you're two zones away from a trainer/bank, or when you're switching between zones.  Having one additional teleport point, even if it's on a shared cooldown, does a lot to help avoid that situation.

You can argue about whether this sort of thing should be available in game.  At its current price, though, I think that most players are going to get enough use out of the one extra city map to justify the expense (which is less than the monthly stipend for subscribers).

Wrapping Up Pre-Cataclysm WoW

I didn't intentionally set out to do a recap of all of my MMORPG projects the way I did last year for Labor Day, but it just so happens that my last three posts sum up what I'm doing in three of my five games.  With LOTRO's big free to play rollout happening over the next day or so, I might as well mention WoW to make it five out of five. 

Through a combination of my preference and schedule, raiding in the Wrath era was never a serious option for me.  The irony is that it has never been easier to assemble a group for unscheduled 5-man instance, but it has also never been so meaningless for the non-raider.  Most of the content is stuff that I was already beating comfortably in pugs, 18 months and two gear resets ago.  If I was raiding, the massive gear upgrades would allow me to see new content.  Because I'm not, the only reward for zerging already-trivial content is to make that content even easier. 

What's left for me in the Cataclysm era are projects that may no longer be possible when the new expansion arrives.  For example, I finally saw the Wrathgate and the Battle for the Undercity from the Horde side over the summer, and I'd still like to beat down the rest of Nagrand so that I can do the chain that introduced Thrall to Garrosh.  (I haven't heard confirmation, but I assume that this chain will be gone in Cataclysm, with Garrosh sitting in Thrall's seat in Ogrimmar.  The Battle for the Undercity WILL be removed from the game for both factions for the same reason.) 

I also experimented with farming old group content for mounts, with comically lucky results.  There has been so much gear inflation in Wrath that it's now possible to solo 5-man content from the previous expansion.  This is actually a lot of fun, because it's difficult but doable in a way that none of Wrath's solo content even attempts.  Depending on how well the early attempts go, I might try to solo the entire TBC Heroic Dungeon achievement line just to see if I can. 

Finally, there are pre-Cataclysm world events, the first of which started today.  This type of thing always jumps to the front of my gaming queue simply because it won't be there down the line. 

Overall, WoW does not figure to be my full-time MMO at any point before Cataclysm arrives.  Fortunately, with four open access MMO's at my disposal, it no longer has to be.