There are tons of things that they could put in the store. They can even put powerful items as long as similar items are available via normal sources.

They can also do the taste of the game thing like LoTRO, by limiting characters, RR, level, expansion access, housing access, etc...

I nice thing about the hybrid sub/f2p LoTRO model is they still keep the vast majority of the subs as subs. For even casual users who play a few times a week it is better to sub and get the monthly "free" 500 turbine points ($5.00 value) and all the extra access.

The problem for us is it still seems like EA just don't want to put very much into DAOC. With that issue, nothing would work well. That is unfortunate, I think they would do well with making both DAOC and WAR f2p.

 

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That is what I wonder/worry about too. They said 1 million new subscribers, so that is a lot of extra overhead, demand on servers and resources, which is going to cost Turbine more to maintain and upgrade. So I wonder if that doubled revenue factored all that in yet?

I'm guessing that's the big obstacle for DAOC. It sounds like Ywain can't handle it's current load of players. So any free to play venture would require Mythic launching additional servers. Considering all the downsizing DAOC went through, maybe they might have plenty of hardware laying around and just to pay for the man hours to get it up and running. *shrug*


When Mythic made tier 1 in Warhammer free to play, I was really hoping this was just the beginning of something. Unfortunately nothing has been done since. And you just can't get people to subscribe to a game that has fallen into maintenance mode. Nothing new is happening. DAOC needs to go F2P if it ever hopes to have a future.

Bandwidth and servers are cheap in the grand scheme of things. LoTRO added 3 new servers.

They already had a pretty large and active staff, so I doubt they really added much there. Of course I don't know their specific books, but I imagine they are doing well. They did put out a TV add too, so that is not cheap. Other games that have gone f2p have shown nice increases in profits. So I wouldn't expect LoTRO to be any different. Especially since they know how well they have done with DDO.

Even single player games like Dragon Age Origins is going to models where they release content on top of the original game through a store type system. It is really a good deal for players and the company. It gives good games longevity and gives revenue to companies for further development and support if they put out quality products.

 

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Offer the low level BGs free and cap the levels at 19 and I promise that there will be hundreds/thousands of people playing lions den or hills of claret.
Just Isolate those BGs as a stand-alone server and they would be busy all day long.
You don't need epic PVE and epic RVR as most people just are looking for anything to spend their free time on.

Why do I know people at work who spend hours of their shift clicking stupid crops on Farmville?
They are just looking for something to pass the time. I'm sure that if you had a daoc-craft game where you just stared at the crafting menu and it was free many people would play.

People hate their mundane jobs/lives and just want anything to occupy their mind for a few minutes or hours a day and thats why so many millions of people are playing the never-ending type games without stopping.

Which is sort of what Warhammer does.. and I honestly doubt it has helped them gain more subs.. also.. you don't want "thousands" of players paying nothing.. you want them to pay without them thinking they are paying a monthly fee.

As for the promise of thousands of people.. it's not because you would play, that it means everybody else in the world will give it a shot... afterall, even freeshards don't have thousands of players.

Never hurts to dream though...


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Come to think of it.. Origins is claimed to bring back thousands, a FFA server too, throw in some F2P which is another couple of thousand.. and soon enough daoc will surpass WoW!
</sarcasm>

There was a tremendous interest in WAR, all of which was immediately lost because WAR wasn't DAoC with a bit of WoW'ish user-friendlyness, but rather WoW with some obscure traces of DAoC here and there. I.e. WAR wasn't the RvR game it claimed to be, but rather a PvE game with PvE mechanics and some PvP elements thrown in. WAR's problem isn't that not enough people know it exists, but that too many people know that it's too much like WoW. If there already IS a WoW, why bother with a (rather bugged) copy?

Now, if Mythic were to "reboot" DAoC, I really do think there would be a good deal of interest as well. Not only old-timey DAoC folks, but also people who never have played the original and crave something else than the gear grind both WoW and WAR have as their focal point. I know implementing a new engine is costly and requires a lot of work to refit the old content into the new engine. And I cannot even say if it'd even be profitable. My gut feeling says it'd be worth it though...

As to the endless trial:
That did more harm than good IMO. Tier 1 is flooded with twinks and a lot of people stopped playing T2-4 in order to simply stay at level 10 and dominate there. Sort of like the people who are perma-Thids in Dragonsworn stuff.

 

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Here is a thread I created on the subject of F2P


http://vnboards.ign.com/ywain/b23441/113873995/p1/?34 http://vnboards.ign.com/ywain/b23441/113873995/p1/?34

 

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