In this latest edition of the The Free Zone, MMORPG.com's Richard Aihoshi examines some of the recent news on the free-to-play side of the MMOG genre.

As usual, the past couple of weeks brought many things that got me thinking and/or roused my curiosity.  While there were far too many to discuss them all, here's a sampling of the ones I found especially intriguing.

Read more of Richard Aihoshi's The Free Zone: F2P News and Musings.

What I'm surprised by NCsoft and ArenaNet is how they managed to have a newer build AND translated in korean for Gstar and also based on this why they will not have a simultaneous launch in Korea. If it was not for this then I can see that translation could take up several months.

Does GW2 really want to start with simultaneous releases?  That would mean waiting until they not only translated all the written words but also all the voice acting, not sure that is easy to do - especially since I'm pretty sure they will want to test reactions to the results before launching.  Can't imagine Arena Net taking a 'when it's ready' approach with Western release and rushing it out for Eastern release.

As to the company that 'lost' the backup - one of the things that is important to me when looking for my next long term game (I actually usually end up trying all MMOs, but only spend serious money in my long term game) is company stability.  If I'm going to spend years and dollars working on my characters I expect them to be there when I want to play.

Originally posted by Sfaliara

What I'm surprised by NCsoft and ArenaNet is how they managed to have a newer build AND translated in korean for Gstar and also based on this why they will not have a simultaneous launch in Korea. If it was not for this then I can see that translation could take up several months.

TERA did pretty much the samething but it's still in "westernization". Sounds like bull**** to me.

First off, DCUO went f2p because it has so little content.  People who sub, don't want to experience the entire game in a month or so.  If you would take the time to think about it, you would realize that.

As to GW2, they already said it would be a box only price, no f2p.  And yes localization takes time.  You can make decent money doing a box title, I really doubt that NCSOFT will go the f2p route with this title.

I would hate to see GW2 go F2P. GW has been the most classic old school example of P2P, and has been a shining example of how P2P can work. Muddying the waters with F2P or some Hybrid system may be good for the pocketbook, but it also lowers the reputation of ArenaNet, and the GW franchise.

DCUO is not a surprise to anyone who was paying attention. The game was originally announced as a F2P title before they even named what the game was. The fact that it was changed to P2P in order to cater to the PlayStation exec's never changed the fact that the game was designed to benefit from F2P, and that P2P just lowered the games potential.

A large company like NCsoft could probably pull of a simultaneous release in both the east and west.

However, the risk of something going wrong would increase dramatically and we all know we do not give games second chances if they have a bad launch.

In addition, I thought it was pretty well documented that Blade and Soul will out in the East and then (a few months later) GW2 will come out in the west. Then half a year to 1 year later the reverse will happen. This means they do not saturate their market and can make the most money out of it. Rather then players buying one or the bother they can buy both! 

I had thought this delayed east/west release of the games was common knowledge and simple marketing. 

Originally posted by Superman0X

I would hate to see GW2 go F2P. GW has been the most classic old school example of P2P, and has been a shining example of how P2P can work. Muddying the waters with F2P or some Hybrid system may be good for the pocketbook, but it also lowers the reputation of ArenaNet, and the GW franchise.

I think that GW2 going F2P wouldn't be used for the western market. But Korea doesn't have box sales for it's MMOs, B2P doesn't really fit that market which is why converting it to F2P for Korea would make more sense.

A Doctor Who MMO? I'd love that. If done correctly it could be brilliant.

I saw the picture and was pumped for some news on Mabinogi II, and then I clicked on it and was dissapointed!

Good story though haha

NCsoft isn't the one that choses the payment models for Anet, if that were the case GW2 would never have released B2P in the first place since that was the stated payment model YEARS ago when GW2 was just a good idea someone had. They decided it would maintain GW1's payment model long before the F2P craze.

I don't remember them saying it would be B2P, but only for Americans. They said it would be B2P, period. Speculating outside of what you are already told is a useless endeavor, it can be done with anything at any time and doesn't even have to make sense. "I wonder if the sky will be green tomorrow." Well, sure, I suppose wierder things have happened, but what could possible cause you to think that would be the case in the first place?

Someone mentioned Korea doesn't have the B2P model, and yet Guild Wars 1 does indeed exist in Korea (they're pretty PvP heavy there, as well) and maintains the same B2P model it does here. 

You'd have been far more successful in speculation over marketing of the brand itself and why that endeavor would cause a delayed release elsewhere. If you think the West is oversaturated with MMOs, the East are barely head-above-water with all the crap they constantly have being released over there that never even see the light of day here. B&S will go live over there first as well, Wizard Online is already live in Japan, God knows what else. It's more likely the release is being staggered so as not to coincide - and thus fight for attention - with other games debuting around that time.

And by the way, it is quite difficult to localize a game, especially one with as much text, dialogue and voice acting as GW2. You're not only spending time and money on translation, you're also translating the context and culture as well. It would be hard enough to do that with a game that has already existed, let alone one that's still being developed. If I saw GW2 in the hands of the East within a year after release here, I'd be shocked.

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

NCsoft isn't the one that choses the payment models for Anet, if that were the case GW2 would never have released B2P in the first place since that was the stated payment model YEARS ago when GW2 was just a good idea someone had. They decided it would maintain GW1's payment model long before the F2P craze.

I don't remember them saying it would be B2P, but only for Americans. They said it would be B2P, period. Speculating outside of what you are already told is a useless endeavor, it can be done with anything at any time and doesn't even have to make sense. "I wonder if the sky will be green tomorrow." Well, sure, I suppose wierder things have happened, but what could possible cause you to think that would be the case in the first place?

Someone mentioned Korea doesn't have the B2P model, and yet Guild Wars 1 does indeed exist in Korea (they're pretty PvP heavy there, as well) and maintains the same B2P model it does here. 

You'd have been far more successful in speculation over marketing of the brand itself and why that endeavor would cause a delayed release elsewhere. If you think the West is oversaturated with MMOs, the East are barely head-above-water with all the crap they constantly have being released over there that never even see the light of day here. B&S will go live over there first as well, Wizard Online is already live in Japan, God knows what else. It's more likely the release is being staggered so as not to coincide - and thus fight for attention - with other games debuting around that time.

And by the way, it is quite difficult to localize a game, especially one with as much text, dialogue and voice acting as GW2. You're not only spending time and money on translation, you're also translating the context and culture as well. It would be hard enough to do that with a game that has already existed, let alone one that's still being developed. If I saw GW2 in the hands of the East within a year after release here, I'd be shocked.

 

 

 Here's a direct quote off the Anet website "about us" section. "ArenaNet is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Korea-based NCsoft Corporation".  Seriously stop demonizing NCsoft.  Trust me they have complete control upon which model they use for their games.  They do give Anet a lot of freedom because they've shown that their sales will be consistantly good and really it's the only break out success they've had in the west.(Yes I loved L2 but it didn't sell nearly as well here hence the new model)  That said almost everything else you say is quite good.

Actually they have stated there will be a cash shop in gw 2 pal. Sorry i dont follow gw 2 that closely and even i kn ow that. 

They are gonna have a buy to play game with no restrictions but i bet they sell cosmetic stuff and who knows maybe even xp boosts  and stat boosts in there store. 

Im just letting u know from reading gw 2 site myself it stats that its buy to play with a cash shop.

As far as the game shut down due to data loss.  I can only assume that data archiving wasn't operating as expected but went unnoticed.  I wouldn't want to be the one who tried to restore and figured out it wasn't going to happen.  An administrator's nightmare.

My two cents...

GW2 has an item shop in it, so the facility is already there for them to monetise completely that way rather than have a boxed release as well. So I think it is entirely possible that NCSoft are planning to forgo the boxed price and just give it away for free and then have some additional items in the shop to make up for it. That is generally how games work in Korea, even for subscription titles it is usually free to start up with no up-front fee.

As for M2, I'm sure it is a smokescreen, Hangame is experienced enough to have a backup of player data. I'm sure they just took the mistake as an ideal opportunity to close down the game, which probably wasn't performing for them.

How many times do we have to say it?!

REGISTRATION MEANS NOTHING, HOW MUCH PEOPLE ARE SPENDING IS WHAT MATTERS!

Trying to avoid real information by replacing it with "Oh, we had millions of REGISTRATIONS!" smokescreen fluff is seen through like people are wearing IR goggles.