Originally posted by Giddian

Maybe I didn't phrase that quite right. My point was because they look at d&d as a nerd thing, they are reluctant to pay for it. Free they might Try it.
 

I think the Kiddy crowd will drop off because of the game {Not your run of the mill FTPMMO} I think D&DO has a Strong fan base and shoud be able to weed out the Kiddy Crowd. {Maybe it's wishfull thinking} I'm looking at this as a posative thing. There are negatives to Everything, I just don't wish to dwell on them,

I like the game and want to see some new Blood. Free or not. I think the VIP Players will rule the roost I look at it as a way to get people to play in this Crappy economy

I don't think DDO have that strong playerbase or they wouldn't have done like this. But it might work to get more players into the game.

But I can't help to wonder if this have anything to do with Atari/Cryptics announcement about a Forgotten realms MMO. I am not a huge Cryptic fan but FRs world is better so DDO will get harder competition once it releases, and if DDO can hook more people before then it have a lot bigger chanse of surviving the competition.

But I think this might actually be a good idea, most F2P games suck badly and DDO have a good chance of making itself large here.

However they must also open up F2P for the rest of the world, making a game free in US and cost money elsewhere is not going to lead to something good, the rest of the customers will feel ripped off and the idea might then get opposite effect of intended.

Originally posted by Wind-breaker

Of all the MMO's I played, I think DDO's failure has been the most suprising.  My recollection of launch was that it had like 300K people.  The limited release content drove some people away.  The nerf cycle also carved away huge chunks of people.  And the non-existent game updates also killed off a large segment of players.  Had Turbine use a little more foresight, maybe they could have saved some of those subscriptions (most telling: Human Versitility giving a +5 to skill points was overpowered, but shroud items that gave a stackable +6 were just fine)

Current estimates of the number of active subscriptions is like 40K in the North American Servers, although Sarlona appeared to have less than 1,000 people on each night in prime time.  The game had such potential, too.  The combat system is unique and addictive and with a good graphics card, the game is visually stunning.  I suspect free to play won't work well in DDO because much of the challenge is limited resources in dungeons, and unlimited resources will kill the challenge. 

        It peaked at around 90k or so actually , according to MMORPG charts........Shortly after launch it went down to about 50k....... I didnt see any numbers for 2009 but I'd guess they are below 25k at this point.........

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Giddian

I think D&DO has a Strong fan base and shoud be able to weed out the Kiddy Crowd.

 

I don't think DDO have that strong playerbase or they wouldn't have done like this.

I think you're both right. DDO has a strong fan base, but not a strong player base. A lot of people have tried the game, liked it, played for a few months, then moved on. I am not currently a subscriber, but I am a huge fan of the game. It really wouldn't take much for Turbine to convince me to buy more DDO. Mod 9 was enough, but a free option would potentially keep me in the game longer.

Hopefully the free model will bring back some of the fans at the same time as bringing in new players.

Originally posted by Aganazer

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Giddian

I think D&DO has a Strong fan base and shoud be able to weed out the Kiddy Crowd.

 

I don't think DDO have that strong playerbase or they wouldn't have done like this.

 

I think you're both right. DDO has a strong fan base, but not a strong player base. A lot of people have tried the game, liked it, played for a few months, then moved on. I am not currently a subscriber, but I am a huge fan of the game. It really wouldn't take much for Turbine to convince me to buy more DDO. Mod 9 was enough, but a free option would potentially keep me in the game longer.

Hopefully the free model will bring back some of the fans at the same time as bringing in new players.

Thank you. 100% my Point.
 

Originally posted by Wind-breaker

Of all the MMO's I played, I think DDO's failure has been the most suprising.  My recollection of launch was that it had like 300K people.  The limited release content drove some people away.  The nerf cycle also carved away huge chunks of people.  And the non-existent game updates also killed off a large segment of players.  Had Turbine use a little more foresight, maybe they could have saved some of those subscriptions (most telling: Human Versitility giving a +5 to skill points was overpowered, but shroud items that gave a stackable +6 were just fine)

Current estimates of the number of active subscriptions is like 40K in the North American Servers, although Sarlona appeared to have less than 1,000 people on each night in prime time.  The game had such potential, too.  The combat system is unique and addictive and with a good graphics card, the game is visually stunning.  I suspect free to play won't work well in DDO because much of the challenge is limited resources in dungeons, and unlimited resources will kill the challenge. 

I do not think DDO ever had 300k subs even at launch.

Originally posted by Dr.Rock

Out of interest which companies have never been accused of misleading their customers? I know from my experience NCSoft, Cryptic, Funcom, Blizzard, Adventurine, SOE and who did I miss(?) have all been accused, who exactly hasn't?

Grow up guys, you are acting like someone stole your virginity.

Good point, many of these developers skirt the line of being upfront with their customers and taking advantage of them  To me what makes some stand out more, like Turbine, is the motivation.  Not being truthful is one thing if there is a legimate reason to not say something (in other words withholding information), but deliberately putting out false information to try to get people to do something they would not likely do otherwise (re-subscribe, for instance) is shady and deceptive and bad business practice.  

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

Turbine is showing very poor form to the veteran players who kept them gpoing through the bad times.

Well said.  Turbine really went over the line and was exploiting the very fans who kept the game going even when there was no content for months just so they could use their sub fees to fund this coming test bed.

Originally posted by Giddian

I for one Like this Idea. With the lack of jobs and money being tight everywhere, it’s good for all. Get new subs that normally wouldn't play, might check it out just because it's free. And let’s face it, subs are down. I for one welcome the change. As a subscriber, I will continue to pay to be a VIP for the extra perks. I can't believe people talking about leaving a game they like over this, New blood is good and if they like the game, {and they should} they will want to pay so they can compete with the big boys. I really think this is a Win Win

Again, you make the point as to why this won't make a difference.  They will want to pay to get the perks so the game won't be free so how does a game that failed to attract buyers for years now suddenly attract buyers when they start out playing a limited and gimped version of the game.  It just doesn't make sense.  It is like saying that if someone won't buy a widget for $20 and the product wallows for years selling poorly that changing the price to 4 weekly  payments of $5 is going togenerate a bunch of new customers.  Heck, in the case of DDO  Ultd most of the vets will be playing in content no free player can access so it won't affect them much at all unless after playing and buying all the perks people stay and we know from 3 years of trials that people don't often make it past the free time with full access let alone restricted access.

Originally posted by AllNewMMOSuk 

From here it looks like in typical self righteous player fashion, people feel they're owed every bit of information they want. They've answered a lot of questions and they will put out more information when they are ready. Contrary to your's and a couple other people that post a lot on here, they don't have to sit there and answer every question players ask. They can also choose to answer none of them, and if you'd expand your experience a bit you'd see no company sits on the forums and answers all the questions. A lot of companies don't post information on their forums ever, they just moderate them.

 

But the type of player like you, who feels for some reason he is owed everything, will always be upset with any game you are playing. Since every company will continue to not answer all the questions, and continue to put out information when they are ready to. All you can do is realize it is just a game, and life doesn't revolve around it, then maybe you can get used to how the world works which is information from companies when they are ready to give it.

Players are not owed any info, it is poor business to leave them in the dark as no info often means diminishing interest but that is the developers choice.  However, that being said, in this case Turbine didn't just say nothing they told lies to retain customers and made promised they never had any intention of delivering on in order to keep people subscribing.  That is dishonest business practice and why so many are pissed.

Originally posted by Aganazer

 

I think you're both right. DDO has a strong fan base, but not a strong player base. A lot of people have tried the game, liked it, played for a few months, then moved on. I am not currently a subscriber, but I am a huge fan of the game. It really wouldn't take much for Turbine to convince me to buy more DDO. Mod 9 was enough, but a free option would potentially keep me in the game longer.

Hopefully the free model will bring back some of the fans at the same time as bringing in new players.

I disagree.  I just don't see someone coming back and finding many races and classes unavailable without paying on the spot, many quests unavailable without paying on the spot, and many other critical elements (chat and others) that require a payment to even see them let alone know if you would like them as something that will get them to keep on going.  If anything, that would be a deterent to coming back as it requires payment up front before you can even see if anything change (not to mention than as they said buying things piecemeal through cash shop is much more costly than the sub.  So instead of all access 15 day (or whatever timeframe) trial to see the game and decide to sub you now get a limited few of the game with all sorts of RMT barriers wanting you to pony up cash for the good parts - who is going to find that welcoming and stick through it verse how few even stuck around past the all access free trial?

"Originally posted by Dr.Rock

Out of interest which companies have never been accused of misleading their customers? I know from my experience NCSoft, Cryptic, Funcom, Blizzard, Adventurine, SOE and who did I miss(?) have all been accused, who exactly hasn't?

Grow up guys, you are acting like someone stole your virginity."

Thank you for your words of mature wisdom. This is coming from someone who uses "grow up" and then "you are acting like someone stole your virginity" in the same sentence.

Agent Smith, that was a constructive and thoughtful post. I completely agree. 

This could actually be a very good change as it brings the pay model closer to how most people play pen and paper dnd. They get a group together where everyone has and uses the core rule books (much like the free portion of the announcement).. They then decide on any other extra rules, campaign settings, house rules, etc are going to be used (like extra classes, races, dungeons, other content available in announcement). After that they pick a time they can get together and run through the content prepared for them by the dm. DnD has never been designed to be a 24/7 persistent world ruleset and DDO reflects this. If this counts as a failure in MMO terms, so be it; it followed the pen and paper ruleset remarkably well, and this new pay system will allow players to play DDO much like they play the pen and paper version. Anyone who doesnt like this needs to get over the idea of a mainstream MMO that stays true to pen and paper rules and play style; the ruleset, and resulting gameplay,  was not designed for and will not appeal to mainstream MMO players. For people who like to play pen and paper DnD, this could actually be a good way to play with old friends that distance no longer permits pen and paper sessions with. As far as the comment about 3.5 being dead, not hardly; each version of DnD is a completely different animal from previous ones and there will always be those who prefer the older rules and gameplay.

Originally posted by sunshadow21

This could actually be a very good change as it brings the pay model closer to how most people play pen and paper dnd. They get a group together where everyone has and uses the core rule books (much like the free portion of the announcement).. They then decide on any other extra rules, campaign settings, house rules, etc are going to be used (like extra classes, races, dungeons, other content available in announcement). After that they pick a time they can get together and run through the content prepared for them by the dm. DnD has never been designed to be a 24/7 persistent world ruleset and DDO reflects this. If this counts as a failure in MMO terms, so be it; it followed the pen and paper ruleset remarkably well, and this new pay system will allow players to play DDO much like they play the pen and paper version. Anyone who doesnt like this needs to get over the idea of a mainstream MMO that stays true to pen and paper rules and play style; the ruleset, and resulting gameplay,  was not designed for and will not appeal to mainstream MMO players. For people who like to play pen and paper DnD, this could actually be a good way to play with old friends that distance no longer permits pen and paper sessions with. As far as the comment about 3.5 being dead, not hardly; each version of DnD is a completely different animal from previous ones and there will always be those who prefer the older rules and gameplay.

Here is the problem and the point you are missing. Turbine is not happy just attracting the D&D fans and crowd. This move is absolutely aimed at trying to attract more mainstream MMO players. Turbine is not trying to stay true to PnP, they are trying to make this game survive and it looks to me like they will do what ever they can, including piss off long time players if it means more money in the long run.

Here is the problem and the point you are missing. Turbine is not happy just attracting the D&D fans and crowd. This move is absolutely aimed at trying to attract more mainstream MMO players. Turbine is not trying to stay true to PnP, they are trying to make this game survive and it looks to me like they will do what ever they can, including piss off long time players if it means more money in the long run.

In that case using an IP with a ruleset designed for a different medium and play style was their first mistake.

Actually according to Turbine, they were doing fine.

Turbine interview @ Massively

"In bringing LotRO and DDO over to Asia over the past few years, the games we were competing against over there were free-to-play games. So we saw the power of this model, knowing that we needed to lead in this space, and we wondered how we could do that. Do we port an existing game? Do we make a new game? Then we looked at DDO and thought this game is pretty perfect for this model. The style of gameplay, with small group instanced experiences, makes it easy for us to lock off and allow players to purchase access as they need it. Where as LotRO is a much different, open world with a traditional experience that doesn't lend itself to this type of model.

And if you really go back to it, the way D&D was marketed in the 70s and 80s and even today, it was very much a microtransaction business, if you can do that in an offline business. But you had adventures that you played with your buddies and when you were ready for more, you headed down to the hobby store and bought more books, or you enhanced your experience with something like new dice or minis or stuff like that. Little did we know when we started down this path awhile ago that right under our nose we had this game that was perfect to start migrating. We've been working on this for well over a year, and we had to really go back and re-engineer the game to work under this model, but to answer your question, we have no plans to do this to LotRO because it's a different kind of game. Quite frankly, LotRO's doing really well in its current situation."

Originally posted by only1war

Actually according to Turbine, they were doing fine.

I got some swampland I want to sell you, send me a PM.  Come on, corporate spin - DDO was a major flop and going F2P proves it as anyone who logged on and check the player counts knows.  But beyond that, much of what you quote I think goes to what I have been saying - this is a live test of RMT for Turbine because they believe that is where they need to compete.  This is not about making DDO any more or less succesful, that train has left the station, this is how to build and test an RMT infrastructure in terms of the technologies and the configuration for OTHER projects (likely LotRO and/or The Harry Potter MMO and possibly/probably relatated to the xBox port they are working on).

The most generous estimates put DDO at under 120k subs at launch, with over half of them not renewing past the first month.  DDO fell flat on its ass and Turbine knows it. They tried to hide it but with server merges and ghost-town servers still to date, DDO has been struggling from day one.

I'd be willing to bet my retirement account that Age of Conan has more subs than DDO.

Originally posted by AgtSmith

  This is not about making DDO any more or less succesful, that train has left the station, this is how to build and test an RMT infrastructure in terms of the technologies and the configuration for OTHER projects (likely LotRO and/or The Harry Potter MMO and possibly/probably relatated to the xBox port they are working on).

I agree - they have said as much too

www.tentonhammer.com/node/69569

Ten Ton Hammer: Obviously you’re switching to a F2P game because you believe that you can make more money in this sort of business model than you could with a straight subscription plan. Why did you think that was the case?

Fernando: Absolutely this is a learning experience for Turbine for the future.

This doesn’t necessarily mean anything for LOTRO or Asheron’s Call. But as a company, absolutely we’re learning from what we do in this project and how to apply it in the future.

I believe there testing to see if they would make more money if it went Ftp..As you notice DDO in Europe is still PTP..But inagain who knows why for there insane changes..

Originally posted by Nadia

Originally posted by AgtSmith

  This is not about making DDO any more or less succesful, that train has left the station, this is how to build and test an RMT infrastructure in terms of the technologies and the configuration for OTHER projects (likely LotRO and/or The Harry Potter MMO and possibly/probably relatated to the xBox port they are working on).

I agree - they have said as much too

www.tentonhammer.com/node/69569

Ten Ton Hammer: Obviously you’re switching to a F2P game because you believe that you can make more money in this sort of business model than you could with a straight subscription plan. Why did you think that was the case?

Fernando: Absolutely this is a learning experience for Turbine for the future.

This doesn’t necessarily mean anything for LOTRO or Asheron’s Call. But as a company, absolutely we’re learning from what we do in this project and how to apply it in the future.

 

 

Yes, read that article (and others like it) and reached a similar conclusion - sure, the upper management at Turbine would like DDO to become a success through this, but they aren't focused on that. They want a track record with RMT, and they have nothing to lose - they think - by putting it in DDO.

That said, DDO to me is the best twitch combat MMO, hands down, and given a shot (relaunch, marketing, good buzz) could develop a larger following. They needed a big shakeup to have any chance for that, and F2P fits the bill.

Originally posted by AgtSmith

Originally posted by only1war

Actually according to Turbine, they were doing fine.

 

I got some swampland I want to sell you, send me a PM.  Come on, corporate spin - DDO was a major flop and going F2P proves it as anyone who logged on and check the player counts knows.  But beyond that, much of what you quote I think goes to what I have been saying - this is a live test of RMT for Turbine because they believe that is where they need to compete.  This is not about making DDO any more or less succesful, that train has left the station, this is how to build and test an RMT infrastructure in terms of the technologies and the configuration for OTHER projects (likely LotRO and/or The Harry Potter MMO and possibly/probably relatated to the xBox port they are working on).

Man you're such a drama queen. You must have a whole closet full of tin foil hats with all the paranoia and suspicion you post about.

DDO has more subs than AC and you can still play AC. What measure of success are you talking about? To some people anything less than WoW subs means failure, to others anything less than 300k means failure. Its all pretty meaningless as long as the game remains open. DDO was doing fine because they weren't about to close it down even with the meager 20k subs they had going.

They have the opportunity to make more money off the game so they would be stupid not to. Having a free to play option will obviously increase business more than not having it. Can you honestly say that having a free to play option would decrease business?

I think a lot of people are overlooking the fact that just playing the free portion of the game can earn you Turbine Points. You can then spent those points to unlock all the game's content. It really is a free to play game. Its possible to play 100% of the game without spending money. Its just easier to buy Turbine Points rather than earn them.

Originally posted by Aganazer

 

DDO has more subs than AC and you can still play AC. What measure of success are you talking about? To some people anything less than WoW subs means failure, to others anything less than 300k means failure. Its all pretty meaningless as long as the game remains open. DDO was doing fine because they weren't about to close it down even with the meager 20k subs they had going.

They have the opportunity to make more money off the game so they would be stupid not to. Having a free to play option will obviously increase business more than not having it. Can you honestly say that having a free to play option would decrease business?

You kind of make my point in citing AC, running these games once out of development is fairly cheap and easy so even though DDO had a meager amount of subs it could have been left alone and paid for itself, very likely.  Though it is fair to call it a major failure as, after all, it did have one of the biggest marquee IPs in the fantasy genre so taking that and tanking to 20k subs is in no way a success.  This change is about using DDO as a testbed for future RMT projects, not about substantively changing DDO's profitability.  That being said, you don't have to approach WoW to be a success but by any reasonable measure a major IP game that tanks so hard and fast from launch to around 20k subs is in now way anything but a failure and Turbine turning it in to a testbed (and the reckless way they strung along fans in the process) shows how insignificant and disposable it is to even them.

As for RMT as guaranteed success, how so?  First off Turbine's handling of this has ticked off a substantial part of the base and will cost them a lot of customers.  Secondly, there are a substantial number of MMO players that simply will not touch a game that is either F2P or RMT/cash shop - because of how it inevitably affects the game itself (i.e. they announced in DDO Unlimited you can RMT buy resurrections in a quest which is a major break in gameplay that previously always required you to complete adventures without having wiped or suffer a large penalty).  Furthermore, as has been said, success in F2P means people spending the same or more under the new model not how many people play.  The 'how many people' play measure of success only works if you are charging them for access as under a sub model, for F2P to be successful players have to be buying items and services through the cash shop and there is simply no reason to assume that a game that for so long failed to convert players from free full game trials to paying accounts will convert free to play people to cash shop consuming customers. 

Originally posted by Aganazer 

 

Man you're such a drama queen. You must have a whole closet full of tin foil hats with all the paranoia and suspicion you post about.

Funny, when I said Turbine was full of it on MOD 9 (being eminent, vaporware, etc) I recall a bunch of those tinfoil hat comments, oops.  As Nadia pointed out, even Turbine has said as much:

Originally posted by Nadia 

www.tentonhammer.com/node/69569

Ten Ton Hammer: Obviously you’re switching to a F2P game because you believe that you can make more money in this sort of business model than you could with a straight subscription plan. Why did you think that was the case?

Fernando: Absolutely this is a learning experience for Turbine for the future.

This doesn’t necessarily mean anything for LOTRO or Asheron’s Call. But as a company, absolutely we’re learning from what we do in this project and how to apply it in the future. 

Originally posted by Aganazer

I think a lot of people are overlooking the fact that just playing the free portion of the game can earn you Turbine Points. You can then spent those points to unlock all the game's content. It really is a free to play game. Its possible to play 100% of the game without spending money. Its just easier to buy Turbine Points rather than earn them.

I don't believe that at all and Fernando recently mentioned in the official forums to the same. It's going to cost them the Modules at the minimum. If it were totaly free, 1. They'd now be losing more money. 2. We'd then have in-game adds for the FTP's. I haven't heard that.

IMO the thing to figure out is it cheaper to pay monthyl or just pay for modules. How DDO comes out with modules that could be like $90 real dollars spent in between (15x6). Obviously these modules wouldn't cost that much. IMO $10-$20, $20 pushing it imo. Unless they really forsee spitting out much faster modules, which Fernando seemed to allude to that it's going to be realitively the same as i has been. To me that means the FTP method should be much more cost effective.

We all will have the time to mull over in the future what is the best way for us to go. If I can go from $180 a year spent down to around $50 on the FTP but still have all the qusts, I'd be mighty fine with this and honestly I can see that. How many modules do you really forsee these coding speedsters pumping out?

Originally posted by Aganazer

I think a lot of people are overlooking the fact that just playing the free portion of the game can earn you Turbine Points. You can then spent those points to unlock all the game's content. It really is a free to play game. Its possible to play 100% of the game without spending money. Its just easier to buy Turbine Points rather than earn them.

I think it would be obvious that for RMT as a model to work you have to need to buy things from the cash shop, otherwise there is no incentive to pay and the thing would tank.  So yes, you earn points, but clearly you will still have to have substantial parts of the game (quests, races, classes, items) that are inaccessible without an RMT or there is no reason to RMT and the business model fails.  Same thing with those who say that important items won't be on cash shops, it is terribly naive to think that they won't (same with essential services or access) as those powerful items or important services and access are the most likely things to be bought.  Furthermore, any cash shop game takes this into account in development - for examples, in DDO they better quests will inevitably be the ones you have to buy, loot tables will start giving away lesser quality stuff to encourage more RMTs, deaths will be designed to be more frequent since they will be selling in quest resurrections - it is the nature of cash shop games that the games stop becoming about the enjoyment of gameplay so much as the gameplay becomes about driving RMTs.

 
This is why so many people hate F2P games and refuse to even look at them, they are simply corrupted by the gameplay driving cash shop sales model.  I also think that this is why Turbine is doing this as a testbed because it really is a balancing act to find how far you can whore gameplay to drive those sales, and there is the technical infrastructure part too.  But any way you look at it, the idea that DDO, in any shape or form it was playable for a sub, will now be free to play is foolish, or at least naive.  Even turbine has said that if you cash shop all the things you did before it will cost well over what a sub would (of course, it is not hard to know that even a sub, VIP, will be targeted for cash shop purchases as that is the nature of cash shop games.  If you are playing a cash shop F2P game then you can count on one thing, if you ware playing and not paying then you are substantively disadvantaged over other players who are paying - either in time, power, or access.

Originally posted by only1war

Actually according to Turbine, they were doing fine.

Turbine interview @ Massively

"In bringing LotRO and DDO over to Asia over the past few years, the games we were competing against over there were free-to-play games. So we saw the power of this model, knowing that we needed to lead in this space, and we wondered how we could do that. Do we port an existing game? Do we make a new game? Then we looked at DDO and thought this game is pretty perfect for this model. The style of gameplay, with small group instanced experiences, makes it easy for us to lock off and allow players to purchase access as they need it. Where as LotRO is a much different, open world with a traditional experience that doesn't lend itself to this type of model.

And if you really go back to it, the way D&D was marketed in the 70s and 80s and even today, it was very much a microtransaction business, if you can do that in an offline business. But you had adventures that you played with your buddies and when you were ready for more, you headed down to the hobby store and bought more books, or you enhanced your experience with something like new dice or minis or stuff like that. Little did we know when we started down this path awhile ago that right under our nose we had this game that was perfect to start migrating. We've been working on this for well over a year, and we had to really go back and re-engineer the game to work under this model, but to answer your question, we have no plans to do this to LotRO because it's a different kind of game. Quite frankly, LotRO's doing really well in its current situation."

I see nothing in that quoted area that says DDO was doing fine. You do not make big risks like this unless you have a reason. The reason is DDO was failing and has been for a while. If you think otherwise you are fooling yourself. They have no plans to do this with LOTRO because it makes tons of money, that is why.

Originally posted by Aganazer

I think a lot of people are overlooking the fact that just playing the free portion of the game can earn you Turbine Points. You can then spent those points to unlock all the game's content. It really is a free to play game. Its possible to play 100% of the game without spending money. Its just easier to buy Turbine Points rather than earn them.

You are 100% wrong on this one. They are not going to award enough points through play or favor to allow people to play all of the game and never pay. They are looking to make money this way not lose it. And allowing everyone to grind away and never pay would be the dumbest thing Turbine ever did.

If this was true I could unlock the entire game in a week with my guild friends. They could very easily help me and any other lowbie get 2k favor and be level 16 in a week or so. Turbine is never going to give away that many free Turbine points to free players to allow them to play everything for free.

Originally posted by Aganazer

Originally posted by AgtSmith

Originally posted by only1war

Actually according to Turbine, they were doing fine.

 

I got some swampland I want to sell you, send me a PM.  Come on, corporate spin - DDO was a major flop and going F2P proves it as anyone who logged on and check the player counts knows.  But beyond that, much of what you quote I think goes to what I have been saying - this is a live test of RMT for Turbine because they believe that is where they need to compete.  This is not about making DDO any more or less succesful, that train has left the station, this is how to build and test an RMT infrastructure in terms of the technologies and the configuration for OTHER projects (likely LotRO and/or The Harry Potter MMO and possibly/probably relatated to the xBox port they are working on).

 

Man you're such a drama queen. You must have a whole closet full of tin foil hats with all the paranoia and suspicion you post about.

DDO has more subs than AC and you can still play AC. What measure of success are you talking about? To some people anything less than WoW subs means failure, to others anything less than 300k means failure. Its all pretty meaningless as long as the game remains open. DDO was doing fine because they weren't about to close it down even with the meager 20k subs they had going.

They have the opportunity to make more money off the game so they would be stupid not to. Having a free to play option will obviously increase business more than not having it. Can you honestly say that having a free to play option would decrease business?

How many subs does AC have?
 

DDO was not doing fine. I am willing to bet the conversation last year was do we close DDO or do we try this new model and see if we can save it?

Originally posted by HorrorScope

Originally posted by Aganazer

I think a lot of people are overlooking the fact that just playing the free portion of the game can earn you Turbine Points. You can then spent those points to unlock all the game's content. It really is a free to play game. Its possible to play 100% of the game without spending money. Its just easier to buy Turbine Points rather than earn them.

 

I don't believe that at all and Fernando recently mentioned in the official forums to the same. It's going to cost them the Modules at the minimum. If it were totaly free, 1. They'd now be losing more money. 2. We'd then have in-game adds for the FTP's. I haven't heard that.

IMO the thing to figure out is it cheaper to pay monthyl or just pay for modules. How DDO comes out with modules that could be like $90 real dollars spent in between (15x6). Obviously these modules wouldn't cost that much. IMO $10-$20, $20 pushing it imo. Unless they really forsee spitting out much faster modules, which Fernando seemed to allude to that it's going to be realitively the same as i has been. To me that means the FTP method should be much more cost effective.

We all will have the time to mull over in the future what is the best way for us to go. If I can go from $180 a year spent down to around $50 on the FTP but still have all the qusts, I'd be mighty fine with this and honestly I can see that. How many modules do you really forsee these coding speedsters pumping out?

 

The simple truth is if Turbine runs this new model as they have run DDO the last two years failure is likely. If they get their act together and put out enougth content that is worth buying this could be good for the game, maybe even great. But Turbine needs to change how they treat it or DDO simply becomes the beta for this new pay plan and nothing more.