I thought this was a reaction to Fallen Earth's 1 week launch delay :)

Obviously, Richard's segment is always concerned with F2P games. If you don't like reading about F2P games, don't read his articles!

Personally I'm very interested in them but I'd like to read more about F2P games that aren't MMOs and aren't on the traditional platforms. For example, Facebook was mentioned in this article. There are very low barriers to entry on this platform, microtransactions seem to be tolerated and it's very easy to see which games are popular and which games your friends are playing, also patching is done automatically and regularly. If a game is popular, the platform itself acts as a giant ad with all the news feeds generated by your friends playing.

For example Pet Society has almost 16 million unique monthly players and around 70 of my RL friends have played it at some point with about 20 active each day, there is a content update each week. Ok so it's just a game where you buy clothes and furniture for your avatar with a few minigames such as racing and fishing - no mobs to kill yet :)

Most Facebook games aren't as involving even the simplest MMO, instead focusing on very short playtimes, sometimes as little as a few mouse clicks per day. The better games allow you to play as much or as little as you want. As MMOs become increasingly casual I believe we'll see some convergence.

There are drawbacks though, most Facebook games are single-player, using friends to boost your stats or income. Multiplayer is pretty much limited to poker games. The target audience is very mainstream, more mainstream even than WoW and the one game that tried to break the mould (Guild of Heroes, a Diablo clone) failed so badly that it was scrapped by the game owners!

I hope one day I can play something like a super-casual WoW in Facebook, from as little as a few minutes per day, for free.

I didn't really read the words but now I've got a bunch of MMOs I need to play :)

Another minor downside to so much breast in MMO advertising is that my non-MMO friends will assume that's why I'm playing. Again it's a much smaller factor than the signups the ads will generate and I never considered not buying AoC because of this.

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Originally posted by Ozmodan

This game is just not ready, going to be a huge mistake to take this to open beta.  They really need to give this game another 6 months at least.  Anyone intending to buy this game at release, expect to be paying for the beta test.  There will be lots of bugs.

While I do intend to try this game out, going to wait at least 6 months for them to hopefully debug it.

How is this any different from the many games that have launched recently, many of which from companies that had way more money to throw at their games?

Well, I'll tell you how from my view. Icarus' design for an MMO isn't the standard cookie cutter theme-park faire that the others have been. I get to pick and choose from a variety of skills to progress my character, as opposed to picking from pre-packaged "classes" that some dev I don't know "thought" would be entertaining. Icarus also understands the importance of areas other than combat with respect to online worlds. The vast majority of games launch don't get that.

I feel alot more comfortable "paying for beta" on this one than those others that I have which barely interested me at best. If my money helps them stay afloat just that much longer to further develop the concepts and direction they are currently exhibiting, then I gladly pay my fee. This title gives me hope that serious attempts can and will be made at making MMOs "worlds" and not "games" again.

QFT

"Paying for beta" is a broken record that doom-mongers need to stop playing. I've had an enjoyable year playing AoC and WAR from launch despite reading posts like this about those two games. Now something original comes along and the cries go up again.

You know what? I like "paying for beta". I like games that evolve (EVE anyone?)

Anyway, the topic is open beta, so don't pay for it, play it for free. Go grab a key from fileplanet now :)

No MMO is ever ready for release, however it is amazing what has been achieved in the pre-launch month of every other recent MMO.

I'm looking forward to a skill- rather than class-based MMO in a non-fantasy setting with an open enough world that I can play a role in. A MMO that isn't just a glorified theme park and isn't heavy on grinding. I want to enjoy this world with other players outside the mainstream.

I want to play something different. That is why I'll be playing Fallen Earth rather than those other games.

I've found that RP servers do vary from game to game. At the very worst they either attract players who think they can get an easy time from helpful roleplayers, or pvpers who see roleplayers as an easy kill. I've also found roleplayers to be very cliquey, perhaps to protect against these kinds of things, and so can sometimes be hard to find outside of particular inns.

I've had some of my best RP times in games with no special server so I wonder if they're even needed. I know LOTRO has decent servers but at what cost in increased support tickets?

What I'd like to see and what is often mentioned before a game launches is the introduction of premium RP servers. Playing on these carries an additional subscription fee which should discourage regular players and go some way towards extra GM costs to seriously enforce the stricter T&C.

I've had that problem too for another fileplanet beta a while back. Just had to keep trying...

The fact that this has opened up so soon does hint that numbers were lower than expected although that also means we don't have to pay FP to beta test. Usually that's the big moan around here. Fallen Earth is looking like a niche game, let's hope Icarus can pull a CCP.

Also:

eu.aiononline.com/en/preorder

Are they going to update the RP website? I only see the announcement of the event on there and no details of it or what is going to happen next. There was an RP website before and it would be a shame if this one faded into obscurity like that did.

Only got the email 2 hours ago but by then it looks like all the keys were gone.

Time to unsubscribe to general game alerts and resubscribe to RSS?

Played AA for about a year on and off and TR for a few months on and off.

Uninstalled Fury after an hour of beta and could only play a few hours of Seed beta despite wanting more.

These were all innovative games so it's a shame they got shut down but I hope future innovative titles like Fallen Earth take note!

I'm really enjoying these articles. You should do one on Ryzom next, been cancelled and brought back from the dead at least twice now. What a contrast to WoW.

Don't forget Fallen Earth, the postapocalytic skill-based MMO with FPS elements and multiple factions. Seems very similar to Fallout when you discard the retro radiation theme.

Did it though? I thought the jury was still out on this?

Quite a few sites have now reviewed this card so what's the final outcome?

Originally posted by toord

Originally posted by Salvatoris

Hey Mr. Troll,  What are the names of the toons you leveled?  I'd like to take a look and see if you have an active account.  If you haven't played since the latest patch, you don't know what the game is like right now.  they are offering you as chance to check it out for free... maybe even freshen up your troll material so you will quit ignorantly posting about "problems" that haven't existed for months.

Everyone else.. don't take all the troll posts to seriously.  There is a 10 day trial for both new and existing subs.  Check it out for yourself.  This game kicks ass.  You should at least see what you are missing while it doesn't cost you any thing.  At the very least you can have some new ammo to come here and attack the game with.

 

 I thank you and the poster above you for making my point about the maturity of players.

 

Peace.

Salvatoris' post is mature.

On-topic, 1.2 is an improvement although some of the balancing seems to have gone the wrong way with one OP class getting more love (WP) and one getting nerfed out of existence (WE).

Hopefully 1.3 will redress the balance although by then T4 is going to be full of Choppas and Slayers which will mix things up a bit.

Tomb Kings is the Next Big Thing (tm) but what I'd really like are some more capital cities to fight over.

There is a bit of choppa madness at the moment but it will die down over the next few weeks. I'm playing one to see how it compares to my nerfed witch elf.

WAR pvp has been a lot about ranged fights or standing back and waiting for someone else to initiate a push, then climbing over their corpse to victory.

Now is a pretty exciting time for the game and my server is totally full with a lot of action in T4 every night. Can't wait for the new shared dungeon and whatever Mythic think of next!

I think this is great. Well done to MMORPG.com!

The next feature should be an 'apply to beta' button for non-release games :)

So the BO timer thing does basically the same as the State of Realm addon? Or will I still need that?

Despite the major nerf my class (WE) has got I'm still looking forward to playing this patch tonight for the improvements to open RVR with the Zone Domination system and fairer loot drops. Also, it's live event time so if my class totally sucks I can at least work towards unlocking the Choppa...

Seed. It's dead now.

Try LOTRO or Ryzom (although there is PVP in those it is avoidable).

Re: Wind Slayer. This game looks extremely close to Maple Story in terms of visuals so I wouldn't say the similarity ended with the fact they are both 2D :) But, Maple Story is pretty old and lacks a lot of features so maybe this will be the new 2D king. I don't think there's much room for more than one 2D MMO, it's just too niche.

I think 300K is fine. The massive number of release boxes sold will have gone a long way towards development costs and as long as there's enough cash coming in to cover ongoing development (of which there is a lot) with a reasonable profit then everything is fine.

It is hardly surprising that any new mainstream MMO will sell a lot initially as people follow the hype and try it out. Last year we had a million trying AoC (myself included), then WAR, then a lot went back to WoW for the expansion. Subscriber percentage of initial sales isn't a great indicator of success in this market. Something like subscriber growth (or decline) after the initial hype has worn off would have more meaning.

Ultimately  the biggest effect on me is server population and balance. Mythic have really kept on top of this with server clones, population bonuses and free character transfers. Right now my server is a very busy place with some great rvr going on. The endgame is great which is always a problem for me in any MMO and with the exception of questing, the endgame starts at level 1 so it's not like you have to quest for weeks just to enjoy it.

Mythic are obviously pleased with this number of subscribers as they're actually re-investing the subs back in to new forums, not to mention the packed schedule of live events, new classes and live expansion.

Haha good luck. It will be sad to see these guys fail in yet another industry. Little tip: TCG != casual.