DDO's already underwhelming Mabar Festival took a turn for the worse last night when an automated exploit detection system carried out one of the largest erroneous banning sprees in recent memory.
Turbine is trying to downplay the issue by claiming that it affected less than one percent of accounts, but that figure is extremely misleading in a free to play game; the overwhelming majority of "accounts" were not used during the event and therefore were not at risk. The 1% of players who got hit with the banhammer were the most active players on their servers, and their absence was highly visible in game last night.
Public Groups and Exploits
Customer service performance questions aside, there's an interesting design issue here. The group portion of the event used a public instancing system; players had only limited ability to control who would be present in their dungeon for the boss fight. As this type of public cooperative content becomes more popular - see also Warhammer public quests and even WoW's automated group finder - there's a real question of fairness in enforcing exploit policies.
If a member of your guild exploits a raid encounter on a group raid, you theoretically bear some responsibility for that action by virtue of choosing to associate with that individual. (Then again, a dedicated griefer might be willing to join a new guild and take a ban if it brings down a raid full of innocent bystanders along with them.) When the server provides the group, your ability to avoid benefiting from others' illicit activities is limited. On the other hand, the developers have no way of determining whether players are complicit out of game, and the ingame consequences of exploitative behavior are identical whether the beneficiaries were willing or not.
At the end of the day, companies generally have to give players the benefit of the doubt to avoid irritating legitimate customers. It does not matter how good your product is if players are unable to use it due to poorly communicated and unjustified account suspensions. In particular, permitting an automated system to issue bans outside of business hours, such that it will be over twelve hours before there is even anyone in the office to figure out what went wrong, is just asking for trouble.
Regardless, this is a real challenge for dynamic public content, which is inherently difficult to test to begin with.
Cosmetic Purchase Uptake
Rohan noticed something that I missed in the Blizzcon coverage - Blizzard disclosed in a roundabout way that they sold 220,000 of the $10 Pandaren cosmetic pet during the first two months. (Half the proceeds were donated to charity during that window, and Blizzard mentioned the total size of the donation.)
That number sounds low compared to the total WoW playerbase, but it also sounds impressively high for a purely cosmetic item (especially when there are well over 100 alternatives available in-game at no additional charge). How many might Blizzard have sold if their own in-game rewards weren't competing with their premium store? How many units would sell if an item actually had an in-game effect? As Rohan's commenters point out, there's a well-established precedent for large portions of the playerbase paying $40 for additional content in expansion packs.
The one real caveat is that the value of this kind of cosmetic purchase scales with the amount of time players invest in the game. I paid for the collector's edition of TBC nearly four years ago, and I've logged probably hundreds of hours since that time with my trusty Netherwhelp in tow. Players will be more reluctant to make that kind of purchase for a new game when they don't even know if they plan to stick around beyond the free month.
As Rohan says, it would be extremely challenging to pay for a game on the scale of a traditional AAA MMO solely through cosmetic microtransactions. I don't know of any game of that size that has actually attempted this. The flipside of the argument is that this kind of microtransaction is a virtual no brainer for game developers. Even if the market for minipets and other cosmetics caps out at 5%, that's almost certainly more than the portion of the market that will quit the game because it happens to offer cosmetic items. If anything, it's remarkable that there are any games left out there that have NOT yet added a cosmetic item shop on top of whatever the rest of their business model (subscription, one-time unlock, mandatory consumable purchases) happens to be.
That number sounds low compared to the total WoW playerbase, but it also sounds impressively high for a purely cosmetic item (especially when there are well over 100 alternatives available in-game at no additional charge). How many might Blizzard have sold if their own in-game rewards weren't competing with their premium store? How many units would sell if an item actually had an in-game effect? As Rohan's commenters point out, there's a well-established precedent for large portions of the playerbase paying $40 for additional content in expansion packs.
The one real caveat is that the value of this kind of cosmetic purchase scales with the amount of time players invest in the game. I paid for the collector's edition of TBC nearly four years ago, and I've logged probably hundreds of hours since that time with my trusty Netherwhelp in tow. Players will be more reluctant to make that kind of purchase for a new game when they don't even know if they plan to stick around beyond the free month.
As Rohan says, it would be extremely challenging to pay for a game on the scale of a traditional AAA MMO solely through cosmetic microtransactions. I don't know of any game of that size that has actually attempted this. The flipside of the argument is that this kind of microtransaction is a virtual no brainer for game developers. Even if the market for minipets and other cosmetics caps out at 5%, that's almost certainly more than the portion of the market that will quit the game because it happens to offer cosmetic items. If anything, it's remarkable that there are any games left out there that have NOT yet added a cosmetic item shop on top of whatever the rest of their business model (subscription, one-time unlock, mandatory consumable purchases) happens to be.
F2P Success Vs Price Drops
The LOTRO and EQ2X teams will both tell you that their products are doing very well two months into their respective free to play launches. However, recent price drops in both games undermine these public votes of confidence; at a minimum, both studios appear to be concerned about sweetening the pot in an attempt to get more free players to actually pay money.
The Perpetual Lone Lands Sale
Turbine tells Ars Technica that over half of LOTRO players use the store, but they're much quieter about what portion of players actually pay for Turbine Points.
TP can be earned in game (Ardwulf's got a good write-up of one of the tricks to get some easy free points), and are handed out to subscribers as part of the monthly subscription - indeed, the biggest selling items in the store's first month were shared storage upgrades, which sound much more like something veterans spend their loyalty reward points on than something a new player would open up their wallet for the first time to obtain.
Meanwhile, we have the curious case of the Lone Lands, the game's first paid zone of content. When the beta first rolled out, the LL price was balanced around players who were going to grind out points for free. This price was slashed dramatically before the free to play launch, allowing a player who clears out all the deeds in one starter zone (give or take) to buy the Lone Lands. Then there was a one-day 75% off sale. Turbine apparently liked what they saw in that test run, because the zone has been "on sale" for a total of 50 TP (86% off) for about a week now.
It's not clear whether the price drop is permanent, but it's starting to look like Turbine wants to make sure that players don't need to pay real money to get the points to extend their LOTRO "trial" into the mid 20's.
EQ2X Hops On The Sale Train, Offers Free Upgrade To Silver Accounts
Meanwhile, SOE has apparently decided that they like what they see on Turbine's side of the fence, as they've abruptly rolled out a 50% off station cash sale, accompanied by a 50% off item of the day for the week. (No word on whether they noticed how DDO had to raise its base prices to cope with its sale habit.)
On top of that, SOE quietly gave the $10 silver-status account some free upgrades. Many players, myself included, might have paid Station Cash for the additional bag slot. Many players are paying SOE $10 a pop for additional character slots. Even so, SOE apparently feels that making the silver upgrade more attractive to people who have been holding out will net them more money in the long run.
Responsiveness Or Weakness?
Both studios are spinning these changes as responsiveness to what their customers want, and I'm sure that this is a factor in the decision process. That said, making MMO's is still a for-profit activity, and that means keeping prices as high as possible for as long as possible. World of Warcraft will continue to charge a separate fee for the four-year-old TBC expansion - making new players buy a total of four boxes before they can play their first Goblin or Worgen - because people are still paying for it. Meanwhile, every other game I'm aware of that has more than one boxed expansion is offering "all-in-one" deals because they're having a hard enough time getting new players period.
If you are going to cut prices, the way that SOE and Turbine have done it is smart; encourage players to invest more time in the game, and make that very first purchase offer significant returns, in the hopes that players will pay more or even subscribe once they've been around for a while. Even so, the pendulum is swinging pretty heavily towards price cuts for games that are supposedly raking free to play windfall cash.
The Perpetual Lone Lands Sale
Turbine tells Ars Technica that over half of LOTRO players use the store, but they're much quieter about what portion of players actually pay for Turbine Points.
TP can be earned in game (Ardwulf's got a good write-up of one of the tricks to get some easy free points), and are handed out to subscribers as part of the monthly subscription - indeed, the biggest selling items in the store's first month were shared storage upgrades, which sound much more like something veterans spend their loyalty reward points on than something a new player would open up their wallet for the first time to obtain.
Meanwhile, we have the curious case of the Lone Lands, the game's first paid zone of content. When the beta first rolled out, the LL price was balanced around players who were going to grind out points for free. This price was slashed dramatically before the free to play launch, allowing a player who clears out all the deeds in one starter zone (give or take) to buy the Lone Lands. Then there was a one-day 75% off sale. Turbine apparently liked what they saw in that test run, because the zone has been "on sale" for a total of 50 TP (86% off) for about a week now.
It's not clear whether the price drop is permanent, but it's starting to look like Turbine wants to make sure that players don't need to pay real money to get the points to extend their LOTRO "trial" into the mid 20's.
EQ2X Hops On The Sale Train, Offers Free Upgrade To Silver Accounts
Meanwhile, SOE has apparently decided that they like what they see on Turbine's side of the fence, as they've abruptly rolled out a 50% off station cash sale, accompanied by a 50% off item of the day for the week. (No word on whether they noticed how DDO had to raise its base prices to cope with its sale habit.)
On top of that, SOE quietly gave the $10 silver-status account some free upgrades. Many players, myself included, might have paid Station Cash for the additional bag slot. Many players are paying SOE $10 a pop for additional character slots. Even so, SOE apparently feels that making the silver upgrade more attractive to people who have been holding out will net them more money in the long run.
Responsiveness Or Weakness?
Both studios are spinning these changes as responsiveness to what their customers want, and I'm sure that this is a factor in the decision process. That said, making MMO's is still a for-profit activity, and that means keeping prices as high as possible for as long as possible. World of Warcraft will continue to charge a separate fee for the four-year-old TBC expansion - making new players buy a total of four boxes before they can play their first Goblin or Worgen - because people are still paying for it. Meanwhile, every other game I'm aware of that has more than one boxed expansion is offering "all-in-one" deals because they're having a hard enough time getting new players period.
If you are going to cut prices, the way that SOE and Turbine have done it is smart; encourage players to invest more time in the game, and make that very first purchase offer significant returns, in the hopes that players will pay more or even subscribe once they've been around for a while. Even so, the pendulum is swinging pretty heavily towards price cuts for games that are supposedly raking free to play windfall cash.
The AFK Invasion
WoW's Cataclysm launch event is up and running, including a purely cosmetic feat of strength for being present when one of each type of elemental rift is closed. For the initial phase of the event, the rifts respawn on one-hour timers from the last time they were killed, so it's relatively hard to tell how long you would have to wait for a new one to appear.
There are three approaches to this challenge:
There are three approaches to this challenge:
- Wait for the next phase of the invasion to start, which will no doubt increase the spawn rate to the point where you can't AVOID completing the feat of strength.
- Fly around looking for a rift that is open. Each zone tends to host rifts of a specific element, so you can look up which zones you need and just go roaming. Northrend is the most crowded, so open rifts are likely to be found and killed before you can reach them. The old world is the least crowded, but you can't use your flying mounts so it will take longer to search. Outland theoretically sits in the middle, though I didn't have much luck when I went there.
- Find a very well known spawn point, such as the gnoll camp outside K3. Park your character there and alt tab out to work on your blog. If you're lucky, there'll be dozens of players hanging out in the same place, slaughtering anything that would otherwise pose a threat to your AFK character, and then slaughtering the rift itself in seconds when it finally spawns.
The scene while waiting for the rift to spawn, many more players actually showed up before it finally appeared.
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