Speaking of which, looks like the DDO:Unlimited NDA is lifted so I guess I can spam about the details and you should be able to read the forums too.

Do you have to spend RL money, or can you trade game money with someone else?

It’s a fairly standard “spend RL money for points which you can spend on in-game stuff” system as you can see in most Eastern games. There’s not an actual in-game representation, but you can buy point for other people.

Consequently, you can be sure that there will be players trading in-game services or goods to RL money sugardaddies.

So if the game uses game cash as a progress restriction (for example, the rate at which you progress depends on your ability to pay for traning, with the design goal of “There’s more to train than you can afford, so you have to pick and choose”), then the design is broken.

The whole purpose of the DDO: Unlimited title is to indicate that there’s no progress restriction tied to micropayment.

However, at this point in the beta, I am noticing that you do have the option to purchase access to additional campaigns of maps. That might be considered a paid progress restriction if you have friends who are playing cool campaigns and you want to join them.

Perhaps the most overt pay-to-play things they’re selling is unlocking access to Monks, Favored Souls, Drow, or Warforged. You also only have 2 character slots by default, though you can buy up to 30. At least, to their credit, all the purchases appear to be one time unlocks – what you buy stays bought for your account.

If a monthly subscription to have almost everything unlocked (and a 500 pts/month allowance for the rest) works for you, apparently you can still do that, but as I said I think DDO is really a lot more conductive to a free-to-play formula. It just doesn’t have that MMO pull to it, but it’s a fun game to play with no subscription attached.

Do you have to spend RL money, or can you trade game money with someone else?

Puzzle Pirates made the decision to make those micropayments have an in-game representation that was tradable, with an easy to use trading interface in game. That makes all the difference.

The downside? People can easily trade RL cash for game cash. So if the game uses game cash as a progress restriction (for example, the rate at which you progress depends on your ability to pay for traning, with the design goal of “There’s more to train than you can afford, so you have to pick and choose”), then the design is broken.

But then, no sane game uses “What training you can pay for” as a restriction, right? Right?

The thing is, FilePlanet has inducted me into the beta for DDO: Unlimited, which is basically Free To Play w/ Micropayments. Dungeons and Dragons Online. It’s actually really, really good move for DDO, which was always more Guild Wars than EverQuest. The game was never that intolerable, it just felt as though it wasn’t worth $15/mo because it didn’t have that compelling MMORPG-like pull to it.

What killed the game for me was getting a system message that “You feel a disturbance in the force” while hunting on Yavin. The race for jedi was on and it ate a lot of good PA from the inside out.

The CU was needed in one form or another, you have to admit. Putting on a set of full kinetic armor with insane stats, getting obscenely overpowered buffs, and grinding your way to master TK in a day was a bit much.

I tried NGE at the request of a few hard core PA members who refused to quit. I was sickened by the way the entire game had been simplified.

AoC was fun for the first 20 levels. I enjoyed the twist on the mechanics but the “mature” theme that was so heralded just went from smack talking kids to topless smack talking kids. I may go back and give it a try if a free trial is offered but I don’t see myself staying.

The issue with EVE its that it isnt very enjoyable unless you enjoy being a “misery-inducing barbarian who destroy the things of others for the epic lawls”. Or you like market simulators.

I found the former to be incredibly good against stress. And its fun and easy, go PvP fitted to a low sec system right next to a high sec one, ask people to invite you, warp to them and pwn them.

Basically, CCP appeals to the part of the market that can enjoy being a vandal or a megalomaniac for a long time. That works for them.

1) You already have the engine and a lot of content. Against this, the “reboot” patch is very inexpensive.
2) A year later, more people have the hardware to run your game, just through the natural computer upgrade cycle.
3) At worst you go from “limping along” to “failed”, and at best you go from “limping along” to “under-performing but stable”.
4) With your box now on discount shelves ($20-30 for the game + a month instead of $60), the cost to buy into your game is much lower.
5) You can offer “Scrolls of Resurrection” and “recruit a friend” and trial deals easily, knowing that if the people only stay a month it’s no big loss, and if they stick around, they’re steady money.
6) After your original “failure”, you’ve likely got most of the bugs worked out.
7) You now have an experience team whose vision has been made much clearer by the feedback when users left the first time.

If anything can re-invent itself these days, MMOs can. As others have mentioned, the error with SWG NGE was that it tried to re-invent a stable game into a blockbuster. Re-invention is only for games on their last leg anyhow.

AoC featured the best music I’ve heard in an MMO, by the way (with Pirates of the Burning Sea a distant second)