F2P would be awesome...even if they controlled everything that created them revenue like in-game advertising, and buying items with cash.
Hell, I would even settle for it being a cheap monthly sub of like 5 dollars + the above comment.

 

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If they would make it so multi boxing was not needed, I would gladly pay my 15 bucks a month. But paying 45 for main plus 2 bots is redonklious.

 

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Why am I not playing a game that's not free? I can't ask myself this question too little.

 

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If the "free" to play conversion was properly done, it would be extremely profitable for EA-Mythic. I only played Lord of the Rings Online until about level 8, but will say Turbine did a great job with that game. Even the pre-"f2p" players are satisfied.

For example, you must buy good mounts, 2-3 classes, and most expansion zone use rights through the online store. According to players on their official forums, one can play the game to max level and have all but the top tier gear without paying one penny. The mounts sold in store are much better than the mounts you can buy with the game currency and the purchasable quest zones let you reach max level in 1/3rd of the time it takes free players.

If we translate their changes into things relevant towards DAoC, classic through ToA would be free (except to attend a ML10 raid or wear gear from ML10) while access to Catacombs, Darkness Rising, and the minotaur expansions would cost about $10 each per account. No access to Catacombs/DR/Minotaur = you can't buy aurulite gear for your alts (the battlegrounds quests are fine, but the merchants would be removed), you can't talk to the king to gain your CL levels, and you can't enter the Lab or wear a mythirian.

Some expansion classes would cost money to access - around $10 each per account. And the same applies to any kind of mount better than the level 10 quest mount, but Mythic would have to remove realm speed buffs and NPC hasteners from the game.

An in game store would sell one time use potions that double xp, rp, or crafting skill gains for a small fee. Cosmetic only items are usually available in these in games stores too and they usually make the company a lot of money. I briefly played Runes of Magic (a buggy WoW knockoff) and was astounded how many people bought the cosmetic wings at a cost of $10-25 per character.

Games with so-called cash shops usually have some type of armour and weapon enhancement options to keep max level players paying money - these can be as simple as adding what equals +10 con/dex/etc or +2% melee damage on top of the existing stat caps. It's also a safe bet that hardcore RvR players would buy lots of RP and BP bonus potions to maximize their gains.

Following the Lord of the Rings Online example, players who already purchased the expansion packs would retain full access rights to everything involved with the expansions. If you purchased all of the expansions, you would receive a decent monthly stipend of the in game story currency - Lord of the Rings Online does this for people who originally purchased the so-called Lifetime package (about $200, which is less than what we paid for all of DAoC's expansions).

Anyway, I hope to have clarified a few things to readers who are not familiar with "free" to play games. Nothing is free about them - many people end up spending more money per month than they do for a flat subscription fee. I've chatted in game and on forums with very addicted players who spent anything from $400 to $5,000 per month on games like Runes of Magic or Lord of the Rings Online. Mythic would make far far less from the average player, but many newbies are willing to buy $10-20 worth of in game tokens in the 1-2 weeks they play the game - I did it myself to buy a mount in Lord of the Rings Online for a character that never passed level 8. And that is the entire point of the "f2p" business model - attract 500.000 people (per year) who will only play your game for 1-2 months and expect 40% of them spend $15 on your game, which will gross you a cool $3.000.000,00 Compare that to the estimated $2.518.320,00 ([3.500 peak population * 4 (estimate calculation given by Mythic themselves)] * 14.99 * 12 months) Mythic grosses per year.

In reality, the number of attracted players would be much higher - Runes of Magic is a terribly buggy game that literally costs you hundreds of dollars per year to gear up and keep your gear current, but ~250 million accounts have been created in the US and Europe (the game is developed in Taiwan and operates under a different names in Asian countries). If only 10% of all accounts created have only spent $10 on the game, that is a gross of $250.000.000,00 since the US & EU servers opened in 2009.

edit: just realized that my method of writing numbers might confuse non-European readers. $3.00.00,00 = $3 million dollars and 0 cents.

 

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Nobody really doubts DAOC could be turned into a successful and profitable F2P game with a reasonable cash shop. What we doubt is that EA would be willing to spend money on programmers to do the initial conversion and setup the cash shop.

 

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Ahhh yes, I certainly wouldn't want Mythic themselves to attempt it - they can't even make a functional Camelotherald now. Mythic also has a track record of being heinously inconsistent (with things as simple as which mouse button opens any given door) with almost everything in the game and Mythic tends to make extreme actions with the nerf bat.

DAoC would certainly need a different company (i.e., one with project management that can at least produce a working website) to plan out and execute the changes DAoC needs to become a "free" to play game. Updating the UI is at the top of the to-do list for this and Mythic can't even get that right. Remember the botched training window from last summer or fall? It would be better for EA to sell Mythic to Turbine, who could then make DAoC f2p.

 

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LightningBird333 posted:

<<I'm curious about this too. EA has a decent amount of fairly successful free to pay(as I call them)games. Id play and pay, if this game were up to those kind of standards. Oh well.>>

They do indeed - but they bought the companies that produced them at great cost.
And in there last quarterly reports -if memory serves - their F2P revenue went down.
Now this could be the economy; it could be that this segment of the market is getting more and more crowded or it could be that having been bought by EA the creative juices that fuelled those companies have dried up.

f2p will cost you more. think about it.

 

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They key to F2P is getting the model set-up and running right. Unfortunatly, the Mythic arm of EA do not have the staff to deal with normal day to day things let alone recoding the game and then running a F2P MMO.

This along with the cost to the players in an RvR environment would kill the game within 6 months. Could you imagine a rr2 <pick you class> easily killing a rr12 <pick you class> just because the rr2 can afford to buy the Uber-pay-with-dollars-weapon.

F2P would be a disaster waiting to happen.

It's probably the economy more than anything else ;p The unemployment rate/underemployment rate in the US is close to 17% (this factors in people who gave up trying to find work, settled for part time work, etc). Many people have disconnected their internet service and other forms of entertainment to make their money go farther.

 

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