In lieu of the AoC review originally scheduled for this week, Jeremy’s decided to throw together some of the hottest stories that’ve surfaced over the past week in the MMO industry. Included in this grab bag of editorial goodness is the DCUO-F2P announcement, GamersFirst’s new “offer” venture, WoW’s unique features coming in patch 4.3, and Trion World’s charitable efforts.
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Show Notes:
- I just said last week that this needed to happen, since CO and COH are both free now, and Marvel U will be F2P as well (if it ever launches).
- This just sounds like an excuse to charge people for future expansions, like they intended to do with Fight for the Light.
GamersFirst invites spammers onboard
- Previously cropped up in DDO, but Turbine decided to shut it down based on responses ( alternative link )
- Will work slightly better in the APB and FE settings just due to the world lore.
- Will still annoy players, and raise security concerns and spambot concerns.
WoW Patch 4.3 will bring easier PUG raids and cosmetic options
- A new LFG queue that will automagically put you into lower-difficulty versions of the existing raids, with lesser loot. But 25-man versions ONLY.
- These raids also don’t include lockout timers, which will be a HUGE boon to folks that regularly do PUG raids.
- This will work GREAT in WoW due to the nature of the community, but I’m worried about this becoming a trend that other games may pick up on. Any developer interested in this trend needs to take a close look at their specific type of community before deciding whether to use this same methodology.
- For example, WoW has a healthy PUG community, and a lot of smaller guilds that can only raid 10-man zones. So making a 25-man option more accessible actually allows MORE players to experience this side of the raiding game (which has a huge content focus in WoW).
- Meanwhile, if a game thrives more on small groups and tight communities, implementing something that reinforces a PUG atmosphere would offer very little benefit while encouraging community fragmentation.
RIFT devs get awesomely charitable
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Partnering with “Extra Life” to benefit Children’s Miracle Network
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Devs will be creating a guild and inviting new characters to join them, and play for 24 hours straight.
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They will also offer titles to anyone that participates (“the Charitable”) and for anyone that lasts the entire 24 hours (“the Insomniac”).
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Also a whole mess of achievements/contests:
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Highest Level Achieved
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Most Favor Earned
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Most Planarite Earned
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Highest Crafting Skill (combined)
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Most Achievements Earned
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Most Dungeons Completed
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Most Money Earned
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Most Critters Killed
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Most Artifacts Collected
Money from MMO subscriptions officially on the decline
– Money from F2P microtransactions is up!