SOE has rolled out an unusual promotion for EQ2 (regular and F2P) in which subscribers will receive access to a new vampire playable race if they remain subscribed from mid-December through February and purchase the upcoming expansion.
EQ2 last received additional races in paid expansions during 2007 and 2008. Though it is theoretically possible that this race is 100% exclusive to this one promotion, the more likely guess is that it will be available in the station cash store after the expansion goes live; creating a new race seems like a bit too much work to put into a pre-order bonus. If the vampires do end up in the store, anyone who does not qualify for this promotion will be required to pay extra for a new race that, in almost any other game out there, would be included in the $40 expansion box.
The decision to turn this into a loyalty promotion is a clever trick that appears to be working. Current players won't be out of pocket any additional money (unless they were planning on suspending subscriptions for the uneventful final months of the current expansion), and won't care if disloyal former subscribers need to pay extra. By the time the 2012 expansion arrives, the precedent will have been set that SOE can task the dev team to work on major features that can carry a separate price tag from the annual expansion, which will presumably remain at its current price even as its features get split off into the cash shop. Time will tell whether SOE offers the same "free" deal a second time.
P.S. SOE has previously commented that they feel that the $7.50 price tag on EQ2X race packs is in the neighborhood of what they would charge for an individual race. As of now, I'm betting that it isn't worth paying $30 for two months of a subscription I wouldn't be using to qualify for the race for "free", and I'm prepared to do without the vampires if my guess is wrong.
P.P.S. In other news, Feldon reports that EQ2's test server has a change that removes the need for player crafted spell upgrades for use of the spell upgrade research feature. He notes that this change could be intended to drive demand for "spell research acceleration" consumables currently available in the EQ2X cash shop. Having spent time leveling spell upgrade crafting professions on both Live and F2P servers, I'm not thrilled with this potential change.
F2P Sale Hoarding Fail
Turbine has decided to remove the price tag from the Lone Lands, LOTRO's first paid zone. This change got extremely limited fanfare - I only noticed it when I went to LOTRO's site to check out some sale announcements. This change makes sense in terms of giving new players more time to get into the game before hitting a paywall - realistically, past sales have been so dramatic that Turbine probably isn't losing too much money by adding this zone to the free portion of the game.
That said, this also points out a lesson that I've slowly learned over eight months as a consumer of Turbine's hybrid F2P model; no matter how good the current sale, you're always running the risk that the item will go on sale for an even larger discount later. Of course, prices could also increase - see DDO races for one example. The point being that you're taking a gamble when you purchase something that you don't need right now on the theory that it's a "good price" on something that you're going to want for later. If you don't end up using the thing you bought before a better deal comes along, you "lose".
When the prices involved are as low as 50 TP (less than a dollar), you're not risking too much. Even so, sometimes it's worth running the risk of paying more for the things that you're actually going to use if it means not spending money on "bargains" that you didn't really need.
That said, this also points out a lesson that I've slowly learned over eight months as a consumer of Turbine's hybrid F2P model; no matter how good the current sale, you're always running the risk that the item will go on sale for an even larger discount later. Of course, prices could also increase - see DDO races for one example. The point being that you're taking a gamble when you purchase something that you don't need right now on the theory that it's a "good price" on something that you're going to want for later. If you don't end up using the thing you bought before a better deal comes along, you "lose".
When the prices involved are as low as 50 TP (less than a dollar), you're not risking too much. Even so, sometimes it's worth running the risk of paying more for the things that you're actually going to use if it means not spending money on "bargains" that you didn't really need.
Passing On Beta
Like Syp, I'm a bit down on the beta these days. I'm pressed for time and I've got so many games I'm playing where I actually get to keep my progress that it doesn't make a ton of sense to spend time on an unfinished version of a game where the characters will be wiped in a few months.
I didn't apply for the Rift beta, even though I'm nominally watching the game. I might try a pre-release open beta as a free trial equivalent, but I'm not interested before then. I was in the beta tests of both TBC and Wrath, but I wasn't invited to test Cataclysm and I don't regret having missed it. There will be plenty of time to see how things turn out as the dust settles over the next year.
I didn't apply for the Rift beta, even though I'm nominally watching the game. I might try a pre-release open beta as a free trial equivalent, but I'm not interested before then. I was in the beta tests of both TBC and Wrath, but I wasn't invited to test Cataclysm and I don't regret having missed it. There will be plenty of time to see how things turn out as the dust settles over the next year.
WoW 2010 More Like 2008 Than 2004
There's been a lively discussion on my post from Monday about WoW's old world revamp. To quote Longasc, who tweeted about the post and his comments thereto (which may or may not be a PVD first):
The game that people talk about when they complain about the current "rails" was gone long before last Tuesday. Two expansions' worth of talent tree revamps left players vastly overpowered compared to formerly even conned mobs - my wife and I tried to pick up our old duo from the pre-TBC days sometime a bit after Wrath launched, and we had to go 2-man instances that were supposed to be designed for five to find any semblance of challenge. Meanwhile, the time to level was drastically decreased, partially through direct reductions in exp to level, and partially through time-savers like improved access to mounts and (recently removed) teleport options. Less time spent on each level meant less reason to leave the beaten path for anything else, which naturally downplays the value of exploration.
With these changes, there really wasn't a point to the world remaining in the state that it was in - even for players who actually wanted the 2004 experience, the content was no longer serving that purpose. For players who actually enjoy the low stress guided tour approach to questing, there were 40+ levels of unpolished old world content to slog through before getting to the expansions. Players who just wanted to blaze through to the group endgame had even less reason to enjoy this part of the game, until the dungeon finder functionally replaced it by enabling low level instance pugs last year. Whether or not the 2010 version of Azeroth is better than the 2004 version, it's definitely better than the 2008 version because at least now it's consistent.
Aside: too much content?
Ironically, Blizzard may have caused problems for themselves by actually creating TOO MUCH content in the low levels. There's a reason why the stereotypical kill quests calls for ten rats, rather than five or twenty; the number of kills is supposed to move players out of each area after they've had a chance to take a look around but before they feel that they've been trapped in a boring grind.
Blizzard seems to have made an effort to build satellite hubs around every camp that was in the pre-Cataclysm game, at least in the early zones I've seen. The result is that they have to move you on from some areas at six kills, rather than ten, because the exp from the extra four mobs would push you out of the level range for the zone. This is faster than players expect, and leaves us feeling like we're being dragged along by the metaphorical train. Dun Morogh, for example, might actually have been better if Blizzard had declared half of the zone exploded by the Cataclysm and had doubled the kill requirements for the remaining material.
"It is a guided bus tour through Azeroth, more so than ever, an on-rails experience. The elements of challenge and failure, the whole *game* has been removed."Aside from a discussion on the merits of this argument, I don't consider this exactly breaking news. The state of the game today is a natural continuation of a trend that has been going since the launch of the Wrath expansion two years ago, if not since the quest system was expanded from the tutorial zones to the entire leveling game during WoW's pre-launch testing.
The game that people talk about when they complain about the current "rails" was gone long before last Tuesday. Two expansions' worth of talent tree revamps left players vastly overpowered compared to formerly even conned mobs - my wife and I tried to pick up our old duo from the pre-TBC days sometime a bit after Wrath launched, and we had to go 2-man instances that were supposed to be designed for five to find any semblance of challenge. Meanwhile, the time to level was drastically decreased, partially through direct reductions in exp to level, and partially through time-savers like improved access to mounts and (recently removed) teleport options. Less time spent on each level meant less reason to leave the beaten path for anything else, which naturally downplays the value of exploration.
With these changes, there really wasn't a point to the world remaining in the state that it was in - even for players who actually wanted the 2004 experience, the content was no longer serving that purpose. For players who actually enjoy the low stress guided tour approach to questing, there were 40+ levels of unpolished old world content to slog through before getting to the expansions. Players who just wanted to blaze through to the group endgame had even less reason to enjoy this part of the game, until the dungeon finder functionally replaced it by enabling low level instance pugs last year. Whether or not the 2010 version of Azeroth is better than the 2004 version, it's definitely better than the 2008 version because at least now it's consistent.
Aside: too much content?
Ironically, Blizzard may have caused problems for themselves by actually creating TOO MUCH content in the low levels. There's a reason why the stereotypical kill quests calls for ten rats, rather than five or twenty; the number of kills is supposed to move players out of each area after they've had a chance to take a look around but before they feel that they've been trapped in a boring grind.
Blizzard seems to have made an effort to build satellite hubs around every camp that was in the pre-Cataclysm game, at least in the early zones I've seen. The result is that they have to move you on from some areas at six kills, rather than ten, because the exp from the extra four mobs would push you out of the level range for the zone. This is faster than players expect, and leaves us feeling like we're being dragged along by the metaphorical train. Dun Morogh, for example, might actually have been better if Blizzard had declared half of the zone exploded by the Cataclysm and had doubled the kill requirements for the remaining material.
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