General Discussion

I have been playing MMORPG since Acheron's Call 2, Final Fantasy, EQ2, WOW, and the last was LOTRO. When I quit LOTRO I supposed to wait for Age of Conan, but there was a period of time without game. Then the first time that I took a closer look on MMORPG website, I noticed that there are so many FREE MMORPGs available, yeah, those games are selling actually certain in-game treasures or other stuffs. But what the heck, it's free. And in the end, I can't take my uber armor set, daggers with me when I quit WOW or sell my WOW account for money.

The first free game is full of bugs which guides me why the game is free. So I browse MMORPG website again and download another game, and this one I am playing now (Cabal Online) seems have good quality and more like a functional game. Graphics are much better than the 9D. But their core design are different from those paid game.The main differences between them are free games do not have or not good enough group instances, and free game usually designed with skill levels makes you to train skill levels which is the most boring part in game. But grinding is the common thing between paid or free game.

Anyway, those FREE games are improved more and more, so who is going to pay monthly to play a online game? Now, I am playing Cabal online, so I do not think I am going to buy Age of Conan in next month. Because I think if you play one game for about 7-12 months then it is about time to change to another new game for continuously online entertainment.

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Originally posted by Larry2298
I have been playing MMORPG since Acheron's Call 2, Final Fantasy, EQ2, WOW, and the last was LOTRO. When I quit LOTRO I supposed to wait for Age of Conan, but there was a period of time without game. Then the first time that I took a closer look on MMORPG website, I noticed that there are so many FREE MMORPGs available, yeah, those games are selling actually certain in-game treasures or other stuffs. But what the heck, it's free. And in the end, I can't take my uber armor set, daggers with me when I quit WOW or sell my WOW account for money.
The first free game is full of bugs which guides me why the game is free. So I browse MMORPG website again and download another game, and this one I am playing now (Cabal Online) seems have good quality and more like a functional game. Graphics are much better than the 9D. But their core design are different from those paid game.The main differences between them are free games do not have or not good enough group instances, and free game usually designed with skill levels makes you to train skill levels which is the most boring part in game. But grinding is the common thing between paid or free game.
Anyway, those FREE games are improved more and more, so who is going to pay monthly to play a online game? Now, I am playing Cabal online, so I do not think I am going to buy Age of Conan in next month. Because I think if you play one game for about 7-12 months then it is about time to change to another new game for continuously online entertainment.

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graphics in general suck, game play in general suck and you end up paying more when you get hocked to the game ( cash shop items) and they are a extremely boring grinds. ad rather pay monthly for a quality game which people cant cheat to the top with cash shop items.

I think that if someone is just looking for something to keep them busy, then free MMOs are a great option if you can get past translation issues, buggy play and/or dated game play. By dated game play I mean that many free games seem to be just translated versions of Korean games from several years ago. They also appear to be just simple grinding with little or no sense of belonging to an overall community.

I have tried many free MMOs (admittedly for only a couple of weeks at a time) and experienced the same with each: towns full of player "shops" with large amounts of spam, overly populated starting areas, sparsly populated later areas. I joined groups but it was pretty much just to make grinding faster and those were far between due to most invites being just group invite pop ups with no conversation beforehand, this is just a personal pet peeve of mine. And of course there is the "free play" model that sells the players the ability to get and use the better items in the game. Which accomplishes two things to me, it trivializes the work you put into a character when someone just buys there way up, or even worse makes you a second class citizen because you can never equip the better items and therefore will never reach your full potential unless you shell out the cash for it.

This being said, I have played MMOs that do truly shine. An example is Anarchy Online, the free version of that is a fully complete retail experience with the only limitation is being limited to the original content. The game still runs into some of issues above but it was just much more tolerable for me. I am not a big fan of sci-fi or sci-fantasy but the game is well worth a look.

In closing I think you get what you pay for and in retail pay MMOs, you are paying for polish and continuous improvement. There is also a better chance to find a good sense of community in a more mainstream game just because there is a much larger player base.

The first free game I have play really makes me feel being cheated. The game is full of bugs. I cant imagine when they solved a bug but create another two bugs in the meantime. But the second game I have downloaded to play now is much less bugs. One thing about the in game coins, you do not have to buy them. Usually, it cost you more money if you bought the in game items compare with monthly subscription fee.

But think of that, what will be the population started to play free game if free game gain more quality.

I do not mind to pay monthly fee to play a game, but when I read in the forum that Warhammer is just a big BG of WOW then it stop me to think about that. Age of Conan seems to be the only choice I could have at the moment. When you browse AOC website then you are required to confirm your age somehow makes me feel like I am about to browse a porn website. Hopefully it's also a porn game. 

Community is usually better on Monthly Sub games. 

Free(Item mall) games always make me feel like all the other players are botters.

Some of us feel that RMT and microtransactions are an abomination to the MMOG genre and defeat the purpose of playing in a virtual world.

Normally (although this has started to change) F2P games never have mutch quality. They are basic, bad graphics, poor gameplay, lots of bugs, lack of features, untill recently almost every single one of them was an asian grind fest. But like i said this is starting to change. But still not that many with a good quality out there.

Second, and for me the most important, and something you problably cant understand untill you meet certain conditions, is:

the "mall" system. In theroy seems nice, you play for free, but can drop a few $ every now and then on some item, it all seems perfect... untill, you find a game that sells more then just 'costumes', flowers, pets, cool items like fireworks... and sells something that either is VERY good gear, or something to make the gear you already have, better.

What? you must think, whats the diference... the diference is for you to play, normally, lets say you even slap a few $ on the mall every now and then, but suddently the guy next to you just spent 1000 dollars on items, making him have such a stupidly imba gear compared to others, it's not funny anymore.

Ok, so the guy has the right to use his money has he see fit... and he does, because in the next week he slaps 1000$ more on the mall, making him have even more stupidly crazy gear. Well, ok, he is paying for the server, you think... and he is, because the week after that he spends ANTOHER 1000 dollars on gear...

You know what? That is a true story, i've seen it, on the very last weeks i played F2P games seriously.

Now, every game that comes out, i can try it, i can even play it some, but sure as hell wont take it serious.

LOL. Guys, open your eyes and stop dreaming. If you still don't get it search the web for "mmo online gold".

At least the cash shops are a fair system for everyone, those who want to use it can use it and those who don't want to don't have to. At least nobody is cheating anyone, and thanks to the people who spend cash in the shops the others can play for free.

IM currently working on an article about F2P games and how they are not so "Free".  However, I will add that in my experience F2P games generally lack the depth provided in a more mainstream game. Quests and storeyline are not as well thought out, etc.

Also, every F2P game Ive tried (with very few exceptions) I get the " I did this before" feeling. Although this is also true of Some P2P games, Its not so strong

Originally posted by BigMango

 

LOL. Guys, open your eyes and stop dreaming. If you still don't get it search the web for "mmo online gold".

At least the cash shops are a fair system for everyone, those who want to use it can use it and those who don't want to don't need to. At least nobody is cheating anyone, and thanks to the people who spend cash in the shops the others can play for free.

Thanks to you... and people like you, that's why the gold selling exist.

If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.