Canada Day Resolutions for 2014

Despite not being Canadian, Canada Day Resolutions used to be a thing here on PVD, since I often found myself reviewing my progress on my New Year's resolutions on a day that coincided with the Canadian national holiday.  Last year I didn't cover Canada day due to being on summer vacation, and this year I was in the middle of an international move and didn't feel postured to write New Year's resolutions in January, but no need to let these details stand in the way of tradition.

Pursue 2580 Total Hero Levels In Marvel Heroes

Through a combination of purchases, promotions, and in-game awards, I'm rapidly closing on unlocking every hero in the game. Thirteen sit at max level and another five have hit at least level 50 for their second tier synergies.   Without specifically trying, this puts me over halfway to the game's current total level cap (2100 for the 35 current heroes at 60), and just shy of halfway when you include the eight announced characters (six remaining Advance Pack characters, Nova, and X-23 for a total of 2580). 

I'm hesitant to commit to this kind of goal for fear that I will get tired of it, and perhaps that's a fair concern, but clearly chain-leveling characters in Marvel Heroes has managed to hold my interest.  Meanwhile, later characters are definitely getting easier due to steadily increasing amounts of bonuses as the game keeps adding new systems.  We'll see how far I can get.

My current roster: I can immediately purchase four of the seven greyed out portraits, as I currently have 1400 splinters.  I will need 1000 more for the other three, plus 600 for Nova and X-23.

Neverwinter - To 60 But Actually Playing?
Level 30 in Neverwinter was enough of a headstart to get working on the several out-of-game minigames, similar to Star Trek Online's duty officer system.  These are good fun, and it seems highly likely that I will hit the game's level cap through experience gained from these mini-games alone.   A better, and unanswered, question is whether I will ever get back to playing the actual game, or just stick to the minigames as I did in STO.  Not sure if that's good or bad feedback for Cryptic, but there you have it. 

Clear out the PS3 line-up
I passed on the PS4 last year, in part because of looming move and in part because there wasn't much on the release calendar for the holidays that I couldn't just get for my existing PS3 instead.  A year later, the math is flipped - many of the older PS3 games I had yet to beat are now available in re-mastered editions on the PS4, so it's only a few last hold-outs between me and retiring my PS3, possibly for the shiny white bundle with Destiny.  The titles in question are the last few chapters of Uncharted 3 along with all of Infamous 2 (both of which I already own) and Batman: Arkham Origins (which I technically could purchase on the PC if push came to shove).

I have a new set of multi-platform gaming headphones, so I'm feeling good about my odds.

Other MMO's?
And then things are open ended. 

• I own some prepaid time for SWTOR that I won't use until the next mini-expansion that has adventuring content (apologies to those who are eagerly awaiting the housing mini-expansion).  
• Honestly, I'm more likely to jump on the Blizzard MOBA than the next WoW expansion, but I'll keep my eyes out for steep Black Friday discounts.  
• I won't look at either TESO or Wildstar until they offer a free trial, and honestly neither is likely to make the cut with me as a subscription title. 
• EQ2, Rift, TSW and the Turbine games also seem to be out by default.  EQ2 has the best shot at a come-back, but since they went digital only their expansions are no longer available at a discount, and I'd need to buy an expansion to continue playing my character.  
• FFXIV is a possible contender.  I left that game with generally favorable impressions, but also feeling that I was starting to need more structured group content to advance.  This would be a deal-killer with my schedule these days.  Maybe in a patch or two, as I hear they are going to have ninjas. 

Could actually be a year where I do almost nothing in traditional MMO's?  We'll see.

Happy Canada Day, and/or best mid-year wishes as appropriate!  

Online Gaming Expenditures 2013

I've been tracking my MMO expenditures for a few years, and the top line makes this year look similar to last year - last year I spent $275 on MMO's and another $60 on Diablo III and this year I spent roughly $321 for online products including MMO's, MOBA's, TCG's, and ARPG's.  That said, the way in which I spent that money was a bit different.

• I was subscribed to a MMO for most of the year, but these expenses were significantly reduced due to various discounts from retailers.
• I was generally much more willing to experiment with things that cost $20-30, rather than try to tough out the business model without paying for anything.  

The latter definitely increased my bottom line spending, and some of the purchases are going down in the books as disappointments.  Then again, sometimes a comparatively small purchase made life significantly more fun.  As I have less and less time to spend on games, I'm guessing this trend will continue.

Subscription MMO's
I had a subscription to a traditional MMO for most of the year.  These games were typically, though not always, the go-to place I would go when I had time for an extended play session.  

World of Warcraft - $65 (Pandaria, 60 days timecard, 2x 30 days)
I did very well snagging discounts from retail stores.  This "should" have cost me $100.

FFXIV - $70 (PC + PS3 boxes)
The PC box cost $30 for the license plus a month of game time.  The PS3 box cost $40 for a second month of game time (the two stack) plus the license for the Playstation Network (reportedly to include the PS4 version, when it arrives next year).  I guess I should have taken the time to try the PS3 version in beta - playing on the PS3 was a cool novelty, but I had problems with targeting and would need to purchase a keyboard and mouse to make this work. 

SWTOR - $51 (two 60 day timecards at various discounts from retailers, $10 expansion)
Again, discounted time cards for the win here, "should" have paid $70. 

The Newcomers
In general, these are titles I play as a go-to for shorter play sessions. 

Marvel Heroes - $70 (starter pack, Cyclops, X-Force Bundle Black Friday Sale)
I hesitated until the very last minute on whether to pre-purchase a founder's pack, and I'm glad I pulled the trigger.  I like this game way more than Diablo III because it features characters from Marvel's comics.  It was worth the money to play the game with the character I most wanted to play rather than one of the less interesting starter characters.  I decided to throw them another $50 on Black Friday for an additional bundle of characters and some convenience perks.

Note that I'm counting the $130 Advance pack purchase against next year's budget, as is my longstanding practice for long-term subscriptions and content unlocks that won't be used (or in this case won't be available) until the year after I decided to shell out for them.   We'll see whether they've delivered all of the heroes by the time I publish next year's ledger, and how I feel about that purchase.

Hex - $20 (kickstarter)
Technically, this game isn't out yet, but I'm in the alpha as a backer, so I'm prepared to put this one on 2013's balance sheet.  I have concerns about the business model and was not impressed by a very brief visit to the very early alpha.  Even so, my assessment was that the time it's going to take to see whether or not I am going to like this game will be more fun starting with a minimal base of cards versus nothing. 

Guild Wars 2 - $30
I picked this up when the price finally dipped down to my new $30 impulse buy threshold.  I've logged in twice, so it could be argued this was a fail, but at least now I can play GW2 if I want to. 

League of Legends - $15 (gift cards)
I had some Best Buy reward certificates to burn, so I turned them into the $5 starter Champion pack and a $10 RP code to finally try League.  The purchases probably weren't necessary with my current playstyle - I'm currently enjoying trying whatever new champions are available each week.  Then again, the cost was comparatively low, since it's often hard to find things at Best Buy that aren't $15 overpriced to begin with.   

Played, not paid
TSW - I picked this up for $15 very late in 2012 and was still coasting on the month of included subscription time for most of January.

LOTRO and DDO - played a small amount of each using previously paid content, did not purchase either game's expansion (a first for LOTRO, despite a just-unveiled 50% off sale on their month-old expansion).

Hearthstone - Have not spent any money on the closed beta.

Not Played
Rift - Has an expansion that I got without paying courtesy of a promo and can now access freely due to the game's business model relaunch.  I logged in once or twice to preserve my character names, but I never really played.

EQ2 - SOE went the entire year without discounting the expansion from the fall of 2012, and now there's another full priced expansion box on the digital shelf.  The good news is that the new expansion purchase includes the one I skipped, and there aren't really any charges anymore for playing the content if/when I pay to unlock it, so maybe I will get around to this in 2014.

Grand Total
Total - $321

A Nomadic MMO Autumn

I've spent most of 2013 subscribed to one primary MMO and dabbling in maybe a single other non-subscription title at any given time.  For whatever reason, I ended up resolving to tackle some of the backlog and logging into seven different online games in the last week.  I dunno how folks routinely cover as many games as Syp or Chris from MMO Reporter manage this, because it's exhausting.  Anyway, what I've been up to:

• FFXIV: This game has quietly been my go-to since mid-September.  It's a good mix of keeping enough of the new school - public quests, group finder, and solo-ability - but with some old school elements that are a welcome change of pace.  I don't mind that I was playing for over a month before I qualified for a mount or that I'm less than half-way to level cap after six weeks.  In some ways, this game caused my current "crisis" by pushing everything else off the plate. 
  
• Guild Wars 2: This went on a one-day sale for $30, which is the price point at which I'm willing to snag a AAA buy-to-play game as an impulse buy.  I had a ton of trouble actually playing the game because their email authenticator would not work and it took seven CS tickets to get someone to read the ticket and agree to remove this feature.  (Aside: the only other MMO where I have ever needed an extended exchange of tickets due to new login restrictions that the provider added - Guild Wars 1.)  I spent an evening, gained a few levels, and it didn't leave much of an impression.  I definitely could have been looking in the wrong places, or this might just not be a title that I'm going to like (which was why I didn't buy it earlier).   Not going to rush this one, pinging some folks I trust for suggestions on where I should be looking before I spend more time heading in the wrong direction. 
  
• LOTRO: Turbine has turned on double exp for an entire month in advance of their upcoming expansion.  I've been behind on solo content in LOTRO since a few months after the game's launch, but 2013 has been the year when I haven't even managed the token effort to finish the epic story and hit the level cap.  At this point, my favorite part of the leveling game are the non-combat quests where I wander around the towns of Rohan doing things that feel like the belong in Middle Earth, but that interactive story isn't quite enough to convince me to come back.  Also, possibly odd decision by Turbine to try and bring back inactive players just before a major class revamp that is drawing much concern from current players - it might actually have been easier to get the new system if I didn't just take a refresher on how things used to be. 
  
• Hearthstone: I'm not playing this thing daily - maybe once or twice a week - and I'm still losing the overwhelming majority of my games, but I am at least starting to get a hang of which characters not to play or at least how to revamp their decks so that I might have a chance against the non-overpowered heroes.  Game imbalance may play a larger role in my mixed experience in this game than I initially realized.
  
• Rift: Not sure this one counts, but I did log into four characters long enough to tell Trion not to recycle all my names.  I sympathize with the intent, but I feel these drives are misguided - you're still not going to get the name DeathKnight because A) your current characters are already named and B) someone else is going to beat you to it if it does get freed up, which means you're going to have to go back to either spelling it wrong or adding non-English characters that will make it harder for normal players to type your name in a day or two at most. 
  
• Marvel Heroes: I forget why I popped back into this game - probably for the sole reason of continuing the "different game each day" trend that I had going.  Well, there was a bonus exp/loot weekend that kept me involved long enough to finish the story and explore all the improvements.  This game had a rocky launch week and I'm really impressed with how far they've come - both quality of service and quality of life are dramatically better for such a short time post-launch, and bode well for the team's ability to set and meet a schedule.  My biggest complaint now is that there are so many heroes in the queue that it's going to be months before the ones I really want get added to the game, and secondarily that you need to download a second 12 GB client to access the test server if you want to try before you buy.  That's not bad in the broader scheme of things.
  
• SWTOR: I've been mostly out of game for a few months now, and thus have missed two content patches.  The new stuff is great as always, but it doesn't seem like it's going to last that long.  I've also got an unfinished Sith Warrior about to tackle Hoth followed by his final story chapter, after which I may move a character over to play with the Ootinicast folks. 

Have you found yourself wandering the halls of multiple MMO's, or is it just me?  

Cash and Burn

I'm concerned that MMO Gamer Chick and Tobold are correct in their suspicions about this week's business model announcements.  Two of the highest profile upcoming MMO releases - Wildstar and Elder Scrolls - plan to launch with a mandatory box purchase and mandatory subscription fee despite nearly nine-years' worth of post-WoW MMO launches that have failed to sustain that model.  Both bloggers note that it would be borderline irresponsible for a business launching a subscription MMO NOT to have a back-up F2P plan - indeed, it appears that both titles may be setting the groundwork, with Wildstar's implementation of in-game time card items seen in other MMO's (including the F2P relaunches of EQ2 and Rift) and the cash shop that Elder Scrolls apparently confirmed in a German interview.  

Unfortunately, the same financial incentives dictate that launching with a subscription is an opportunity to extract $60 for the retail box (with $150 or higher price tags widely accepted for collector's editions) and some subscription revenue in the interim - especially if there's a chance to sell people on "discounted" pre-paid six-month subscriptions before they've had the chance to play the game. 

The problem isn't the subscription fee itself, the entry barrier created by the initial box price, the bad press often generated as games visibly fail to live up to their original promises (Elder Scrolls is already making the same promises that they plan to update every 4-6 weeks that so many studios have failed to sustain), or whether the final business model when the dust settles is in any way sensible.  My main concern isn't even that this model puts MMO studios in the business of exploiting hype and vague, misleading information to make a quick buck.  As Bhagpuss points out, these things ultimately have limited impact on the merits of the actual gameplay. 

The real casualty of these cash and burn tactics is the community.  When the dust settles, the tourists have come, overpaid, and gone.  The jaded veterans like myself have waited for the inevitable re-launch and gotten a high quality product at a fire sale price.  The cost is that the community is shattered as the majority of servers shut down, the majority of your friends leave for games that are looking more promising, and the folks who do return do so for brief periods as the content release schedule permits.  This may not change the gameplay - especially as more titles are offering more ways to play and win with limited time and commitment - but it definitely changes the experience of playing these games and experiencing these worlds.

If this is the solution to the problem of how to finance MMO development, it's a sad day. 

Things I Missed In Game

The downside to being away from MMO's for a month is that stuff happens when you're not around.  A few things I observed from afar:

• Another round of double exp weekends in SWTOR.  A bit disappointed to have sat this one out, the exp rate would have gotten my third character through their class story and made a decent dent in a fourth.  
• FFXIV's third closed beta phase (received invite).  Indifferent to having missed this, as characters were wiped at the end of beta 3, and supposedly characters will NOT be wiped at the end of the open beta/phase 4.  Not sure how they're going to have both a non-reset open beta and a pre-purchase headstart program, guess we'll know in a month or so. 
• Growing pains in Marvel Heroes.  The game's launch was a bit of a mess.  The patcher kept re-downloading the entire game client to the point where technical support was recommending that you install the game through Steam.  There were a variety of bugs and quality of life issues associated with quest rewards.  Perhaps most interesting, the studio has announced plans to move away from the completely random drop system for earning heroes in game and instead use a token unlock system.  Given that playing real characters from the IP is a central selling point of the title, I don't know if it's more puzzling that they refused to give ground on this point for so long, or that they reversed so suddenly.  Either way, the game looks like it's in much better shape than it was a month ago.  
• Other things I'm not tracking so closely include Rift's business model shift (came down just before I left, haven't really heard much discussion since) and TSW quietly putting out DLC at a decent clip after the game's relaunch and the relocation of its studios.  

It could have been worse, seems to have been a relatively quiet chunk of summer.  I also learned today that WoW's patch 5.3 world event is apparently going away in the next patch, but I'm hoping there's still time to catch that.  What else has been going on in game this summer? 

Character Transfer Diservice

I picked a server a bit over a year ago, after consulting with three bloggers who I knew were playing the game.  All recommended the same server and even the same bloggers' guild.  The third party stats sites guesstimated that the server was the number three RP server in the region.  Unfortunately, the guild didn't really work out - all the members seem to have gone off to other games, and I haven't even been able to find people to get guild invites for my new alts, leaving me on a server where I don't know anyone.  I can name at least three other servers where I would rather be playing today, but for the not-so-minor issue of all the time and even money I have invested on the server with my six current characters.

If you really follow my games and guilds closely, you might have guessed that the unnamed game experience described above is in SWTOR.  Most of you were probably scratching your heads, because a highly similar scenario exists in many MMO's. 

SWTOR's transfers
After promising for the better part of a year that character transfers were finally coming - a year which saw 90% of the game's servers closed, including the seemingly healthy one I picked several months post launch - Bioware has announced its paid character transfer service.  Transfers will cost $14-18 per character (depending on how you purchase your cartel coins), and it looks to me like they will NOT be available for resale in the in-game auction house. 

Bear in mind that this is a game that specifically promoted making all of your alts on the same server though the game's legacy system.  My six characters cover all the crewskill professions and each has probably a million credits worth of in-game currency investment in terms of character-specific legacy perks, collection items, companion affection purchased with gifts, etc.  More importantly, these characters share a large array of server specific legacy unlocks, a few of which I even purchased in the cash shop using my subscriber point stipends. 

Despite all of these reasons why I opted to make this many characters in the first place and all the claims that the transfer service would be "legacy friendly", there is no discount for transferring multiple characters off of the same server.  I would either need to leave behind characters - and not get any credit for their future efforts towards my legacy on the new server - or else be prepared to fork over $80.  Even if I did move to a server that's better today (the Harbinger server, home to the Ootinicast crew, would otherwise be a top contender), I'd have no guarantees that I won't be in the same boat in a few months if the new server also goes belly up.

An industry-wide standard
In a related story, Blizzard is running a one-week only sale on its paid transfer services - Azuriel points out that even at 50% off these prices are still higher than the SWTOR prices.  At the time Blizzard announced the service, the stated justification for such high prices was to recoup the development costs for the transfer feature and to deter frequent use of the service to enable antisocial behavior.  Apparently both of these arguments can be dispensed with if it encourages more transfer fees.   Tera also apparently had a window for open transfers that is coming to an end, with a new fee starting next week.

I get that locking players into static servers worked great for the industry in 2004, in part because that's what the technology of the era could support.  It's not 2004 anymore, and I don't think it's reasonable to punish customers for choosing "wrong" months or years ago by charging them to play with their friends in a genre that's struggling to find ways to keep customers engaged in the product.  It's not good for my enjoyment of the game as a customer, and therefore it's also not good for Bioware's revenue when my poor experience leads to less money spent on their product. 

It doesn't have to be this way.  Many modern games offer single-shard or cross realm functions in one way or another (Cryptic games, GW2), and we also have the example of Rift, which offers free transfers between its more traditional servers. Unfortunately, this feedback falls on deaf ears when developers can rake in nearly six months' worth of sub fees by selling a single customer in my position on paying to solve a problem that was not the customer's fault. 

Review: Raptr and it's Rift Promo

I recently took part in Trion's cross promotion with Raptr to snag a free copy of last fall's Rift expansion.  I'm not playing Rift at the moment, but the rumor is that you will have to buy the new soul for each calling individually post F2P.  Getting all the souls now for free seemed appealing, but this created a minor question of how to log the hours /played to qualify for the promotion. 

The marketing campaign requires players to create a Raptr account and log roughly 13 hours of time "playing" Rift - the unlimited free (re-) trial version will do - with the Raptr client open.  This would be difficult if you were legitimately trying to play the game, as the trial caps at level 20 and you'd run out of stuff to do before you logged the requisite hours.   

Fortunately, to make a long story short, Raptr's client does nothing to deny you credit if you want to AFK to pad your playtime.  The clock starts when you open the Rift client and the clock stops when you close the Rift client.  If you choose to leave your the client on the "you have been disconnected, push okay to close client" screen for ten hours, that's your business. You can even play a different game simultaneously, if your computer can handle the load, and Raptr will log and credit your time /played in the second game as well.

Gaming and social media
Besides getting something I guess I sort of wanted to have without spending real money, this was an interesting visit to the social experiment that is Raptr.  I have misgivings about mixing social networking with online gaming, and the experience did little to assuage them.

My Raptr profile - which I immediately changed to self-only - proudly proclaims that I played a "crazy session" of 10+ hours of Rift during working hours on a weekday.  Publicizing this information - Raptr will spam your twitter feed for you if you provide your credentials - is what makes Raptr valuable to advertisers, as it can go back to Trion and say that every play session I logged is a advertisement for Rift spammed out to all my friends for free. This is also why they have zero incentive to prevent me from AFK'ing - Raptr knows perfectly well that I was idle (and will even mark me AFK in the chat system if I want), but it's just as happy to add my AFK hours to the total it includes in its marketing materials.

It's less clear to me why it's to my benefit to have my gaming activities broadcast so publicly.  I suppose the sheer length of time involved makes it relatively obvious that I opened the client, went to work, and stopped for groceries on the way home before checking to see if I'd made the required hours yet, but I can imagine questions being asked by current and potential employers if this type of activity log was public and a frequent pattern.

The client also helped itself to scanning my hard drive for all the games it could find (which was NOT most of them, because it didn't think to look on my data drive) without any warning that it was going to do so, and posting those to my profile as well.  You can delete them manually - and I assume re-delete them every time you let it rescan - but if you don't want the world to know that you have Hello Kitty Online Adventures on your computer, you're probably going to have to work at it. 

At the end of the day, it's your choice whether to opt into these sort of things - so long as you read the fine print closely enough to realize what you've agreed to, and think ahead to the reality that information that you placed on the internet voluntarily is probably never coming down if you change your mind later.  If I had any aspirations of making money either covering or making games, I suppose I could see some benefit to having this kind of record as a public resume of my achievements.  Perhaps if I was looking to catalog time /played for myself or someday my kid (i.e. if I see you on the computer playing and you're not in Raptr chat, I assume you've closed the client to cheat the logs and you lose your computer privileges) , having a log handy would be helpful. 

As an every day user, though, I think I'll pass, even if that does mean that I won't be getting credit for hours that might someday qualify me for some future reward. 

Rift Goes Pay-For-Others

Rift's newly announced "Free-to-Play" relaunch was so obvious that even I saw it coming.  One of their more interesting decisions harnesses an emerging trend in payment models - turning the traditional RMT incentive structure on its head with a system that encourages people who have money to pay for others to play the game. 

It's a subtle but important distinction that makes sense when you look at the incentives and motivations for why people pay real money for stuff in MMO's.  On paper, this approach could be much better for gamers than many of the other things that have been tried. 

Traditional RMT - Paying for Progress (to Win?)
Traditional "Real Money Transactions" (RMT) - people buying swords or accounts on Ebay, currency from illicit third party sites, or all of the above from official exchanges - is motivated by a desire not to play the game.  The buyer wants to obtain something - currency, a pre-leveled character, etc - that they could in principle earn in game.  For whatever reason - lack of time, unwillingness to group, lack of interest in timesinks that are a prerequisite for endgame, etc - they are unwilling or unable to earn their incentive the traditional way, but they have money they are willing to part with. 

Setting aside all of the logistics, legalities, ethics, and design issues that these systems inevitably raise, you are left with a fundamental problem - a game that people are willing to pay NOT to play.  Blizzard accidentally took this to the logical, absurd extreme in Diablo III, where it became so easy for players to buy gear with trivial amounts of gold on the auction house that nothing the player ever earned in game would be relevant. 

Unless you have designed your game in a way that requires one playstyle as a prerequisite for another - most commonly requiring people who want to raid with their friends to first grind out 90 levels solo and then run random PUG's to get the gear to be useful to the raid group - there is no scenario where the player who pays for progress isn't ultimately going to wash out that much faster for having done so. 

Paying for Others
Beyond the traditional RMT, we are seeing a growing trend - regardless of genre and type of payment model - towards games that somehow allow one player to pay another's way.  A few examples:

• EVE was the first game to my knowledge to implement a mechanism they dubbed PLEX, effectively an in-game time card that is bought with real money, can be consumed to extend your subscription time, and is also free to be bought, sold, bartered, stolen or destroyed like any other in-game item can be in EVE.  SOE has adopted the same system (minus the thievery and destruction) in EQ2, and I expect more will follow.
  
• SWTOR's free to play model didn't make a lot of sense to many people - myself included - in part because it did not seem to ever make sense for someone who is NOT subscribing to pay money for the game.  Weekly access to content like PVP added up to around $8/month, but you also had to pay significant one-time unlock fees for gear and other things you'd need before you could start on this discounted (but still hobbled) plan - and if you wanted to add in a second type of content unlock, such as raiding, you actually failed at math because you'd be paying more than the subscription but getting stuck with greater restrictions. 
  
  The difference in this model is that every single unlock in the cartel market can be resold for in-game credits on the auction house.  I was dead wrong when I assumed that this secondary market would be unsustainable because people would not pay real money for the paltry number of credits a non-subscriber can pay them.  Even the most expensive unlocks and items can be had for affordable prices because people are unwilling or unable to earn amounts of credits that I consider to be trivial - Bioware is even expanding this market by adding a consumable, resellable item that pulls credits out of non-subscribers' escrow accounts.  In a perverse way, it makes sense to be a non-subscriber who gets less for the money because it's someone else's money.  
  
  The real story with SWTOR is that the number three (optional) subscription MMO in the West is quietly convincing some demographic of players (probably casual Star Wars/Bioware fans who have money and aren't interested in learning to crew skill or farm dailies) to pay significantly more than the standard monthly fee in exchange for credits.
  
• Rift's new model will feature a variant of PLEX that awards not game time, but rather the game's new item shop currency.  It's not clear whether this currency can be used to purchase subscription time (which sounds unusually optional, though we need more details to be sure), but it can definitely be used to purchase all kinds of items.  Many free to play games offer some mechanism for gifting stuff from their cash shops - sometimes for resale to other players (and sometimes at the players' peril when it comes to scams) - but this is not a common mechanism and Rift is the highest profile F2P relaunch to do anything like this.

The difference between pay for others models and traditional RMT is subtle, but important.  One side of the demand curve is still driven by people who wish to trade real world money for in-game currency.  The other side of the demand curve is driven by people who want to play the game - presumably because they enjoy playing the game - but are unwilling or unable to pay for the game. Under a pay for others model, the person with the money can pay that person's way in exchange for their in game currency. 

Why making the non-payer valuable is a win for everyone
What happens to people who choose not to pay under the various payment models?

• Mandatory subscription fee: The player who is not willing to pay leaves, thereby ceasing to support the game and indirectly removing the incentive for the developer to address their concerns.  Meanwhile, the player with excess money has no legitimate way to spend it, as their $15 is all they can pay.
• Traditional free-to-play/buy-to-play: Assuming the system isn't so poorly monetized that no one pays and the game goes under, the player who is not willing to pay is still asked to pay and still leaves as a result.  The player who is willing to pay more than $15 can do so, and becomes disproportionately valuable to the developer as a result.  However, they can also lose in the long run, as the financial incentive for the developer is to find ways to "encourage" them to pay even more.
• Pay-for-others: Instead of leaving the game, the player who is not willing to pay becomes the incentive for the person with more than $15/month to spend their money.  Theoretically, this can keep all of the players within the community (good for their friends, paying and not), while retaining a financial incentive for the developer to support their whole community, not just the "whales".  

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.  The one thing you cannot do is go back and restrict things that you gave away later if you're not happy with the revenue, and Rift is giving away so much stuff that they won't have much left to sell if this plan does not work.  They are also offering entry level gear for cash store (and thus indirectly in-game-currency) purchase, which could alleviate some of the entry barrier issues for new max level characters by letting them skip the much despised PUG grind and pay for what they need to join their friends in raid content. 

A final note - this change causes the ranks of mandatory subscription MMO's to dwindle further.  We will now have WoW (losing a million subscribers per quarter, with Activision predicting that the numbers will drop further by year end), EVE (which offers a very unique experience that can't be had anywhere else), the online Final Fantasies (assuming that 14 launches and survives) with their strong subscriber numbers from the Japanese market ... and then we're down to stragglers and titles on life support.  It would not surprise me to see some of these titles join EVE in offering some sort of mechanism for players to pay for others going forward, especially if Rift's new model works out. 

Belated Predictions For 2013

Last year's predictions did not go so well.  I predicted that it would not be a great year for new subscription MMO's, but I also thought that SWTOR would skate by as a high churn subscription title, and that WoW could not afford to leave Cataclysm sitting on the shelf beyond early summer.  Even so, I've found that I have a fair number of predictions either scattered through my blog and other peoples' comment sections, so I figure there's no harm in collecting all of my comic inaccuracy in a single spot.

Anyway, here are my belated predictions - I don't know if this makes my job easier because I have a month of additional information (see first item, below) or harder because there is less time left for the predictions to come true.  In any case, if I have predicted bad things for your favorite MMO this year, rest assured that my lack of accuracy well have guaranteed your game's smashing success.  :)

Rift Goes Free To Play in 2013
First up, a minor cheat by exploiting information that only became available in late January.  Two days ago, I would have said that Executive Producers Scott Hartsman's position against turning the game free to play would be enough to keep it from happening in 2013 - even if Trion's views eventually changed, failing to work ahead on the conversion would keep it from launching this year.

Then came news that Hartsman has departed from Trion Studios.  In the last week, we also learned that Trion's MMOFPS Defiance plans to launch with a buy-to-play model featuring a $60 box and no recurring subscriptions.  We already knew that the online strategy game End of Nations - assuming it survives being in-sourced into Trion proper - was going to be Free to Play.  Going back to last year, Rift already has an in-game store, and then there were the layoffs at Trion and the former End of Nations developers.

Moving this particular game to free-to-play is debatable, but Trion has investors to answer to.  As long as things are going really well, Trion has the ammo it needs to justify why they are continuing to buck the overwhelming industry trend.  If things have started to go downhill - and the layoffs suggest that they have - then we can expect Rift to lose its subscription in 2013.

LOTRO: Helm's Deep Or Bust
As I've previous written, I think LOTRO is under a lot of pressure to increase revenue THIS year.  Turbine's 2008 press release indicated that they have the license through 2014, with options to extend the term out to 2017.  We don't know whether the terms of the option years are favorable, and presumably the studio's new owners at Warner Brothers are capable of re-negotiating a reasonable deal if this is worth their time. 

That makes 2013 the year in which Turbine has to prove the game's worth.  LOTRO will not fold in 2013, but if things go badly it could very well close when the license issue comes due in 2014.  To this end, I expect the following:

• Unlike last year's Great River update or the F2P relaunch's Enedwaith region, we will NOT see a new region added at the current level cap.  The price point on these new optional areas has generally been low, and that makes it a questionable investment that would be better saved for the next expansion.
• Speaking of which, I expect the new expansion to require a minimum purchase of $50, up from $40 last year and $30 the year before.  As with last year, Turbine will offer plenty of opportunity to pay full price early and then discount the thing by 50% for an end-of-year sale once the early adopters have paid up.
• The expansion will bump the level cap to 95.  LOTRO has lots of level-scaling content in past expansions that could be used to level to the new cap and skip buying the new content.  Making the cap higher makes that option less desirable because you would have more levels to grind out.
• The actual battle of Helm's Deep - which, as in recent years, may get delayed to a patch after the expansion launch - will be presented from multiple different perspectives so that solo, group, raid, and monster players can all participate in this iconic bit of the lore.  

I probably won't be bored enough to count come 2014, but we're almost certainly not done with Turbine pushing something aggressive and unpopular into the cash shop and then gauging whether to backpedal based on the customer feedback.  It seems like we can expect this sort of thing roughly every other month.

Asheron's Call 3 Announced
It's possible that Turbine dusted off AC2 just as a lark of a weekend project.  Then again, we know that they've been working on a mystery title for a while, and it would make a lot of sense for them to work in their own IP so that they are not at the mercy of some rightsholder.

Blizzard Updates
This is a Blizzcon year, which means we will probably get some announcements in addition to the oft-delayed Starcraft II expansion.  My guesses:

• WoW's next expansion announced, but will not be ready for beta in 2013.  After years of promising to try and get expansions out in a more timely fashion, Blizzard finally concedes that it's going to be 20+ months like the previous attempts. 
• Blizzard announces a console based non-subscription spinoff of one of its existing IP's.  A recent rumor suggested that this was the real nature of Titan, the long rumored online followup to WoW, but that was supposed to be an original IP.  We know they've been flirting with consoles for years now, and I'm guessing that this is a separate effort.  It will be interesting to see whether it runs on current generation console hardware, as Blizzard's development cycle is so long that next generation consoles will probably arrive before this game does.
• Titan will finally be announced, but will not be playable or in any way suggesting it will debut in 2014. Blizzard has had time to ponder how DIII went for them and see the way the wind is blowing, so this game will NOT have a subscription.  It will instead be designed from the ground up with something - content, characters, etc - that people can purchase to keep the revenue flowing.

Funcom goes out of business in 2013, probably taking its titles to the grave
I'm not going to belabor my analysis from last week - this studio was on shaky footing before TSW disappointed, and I'm not convinced that layoffs alone can balance the books, especially if they hurt the ability to deliver future updates.  I'm not sure what EA does on a day to day basis as the publisher for TSW - if they own the servers, billing system, etc, that would be a major impediment to any attempt to sell the title off. 

New Subscription MMO's
If an MMO studio asked me for advice, I'd say that attempting to launch a new MMO with a box price and a monthly fee is really poorly advised.  However, I don't think the industry is quite ready to let this approach die just yet.  Looking at two major upcoming releases that have yet to announce business models:

• Wildstar: Will definitely have a box price at launch.  I predict it will not charge a subscription by the end of 2013 - either they'll be smart and not try or they'll be forced to reconsider between launch and the end of the year.
• Elder Scrolls Online: With all the hype they're already firing up for this game's beta, this game shows all the signs of having a large budget, and they are declining to state their planned business model.  It's possible that they are going to go buy-to-play with frequent paid DLC and are saving this piece of news to build anticipation for the inevitable pre-purchase campaign. Still, GW2 aside, I will believe that a big budget MMO like this one is willing to voluntarily surrender the monthly fee when I see it.
  
  So I predict Elder Scrolls WILL launch with a monthly fee.  They will probably still have it through at least the end of 2013, but that may have more to do with launching late in the year than with the game's success.  (I do predict they will launch this year - even Blizzard doesn't start its beta process an entire year in advance of release.)   

Kickstarter Chaos
After proudly proclaiming 2012 the year of the Kickstarter-funded game - and cheerfully pocketing 5% of the proceeds with no obligation to help ensure that backers get what was promised - Kickstarter is due for a reckoning.  At least one video game product that received $1 million in backing will go bankrupt before delivering the promised game in 2013.

Kickstarter will make some token changes in response to the backlash, but will remain constrained by their business model - they make money when projects are successfully funded, not when they force creators to post information that dissuades people from backing risky and/or poorly thought out efforts.   Expect some minimal token effort before returning to business as usual, but the incident will cost the site some of its hip status within the blogosphere. 

No big winner, but perhaps balance?
Overall, I don't see a single MMO emerging as the big winner in 2013, the way that Guild Wars 2 arguably won the half of 2012 after its release.  When you look at Syp's list of new MMO's to watch in 2013, half either aren't traditional MMO's or else are unlikely to release in 2013.  As a result, we're likely to get at least 8-9 months into 2013 without a major event launch with the traditional cycle of hype - and all too often disappointment.  (We could go the entire year if I'm wrong and Elder Scrolls slips into 2014.)  Even the slate of major expansions is going to be relatively quiet since many of the big players released something in late 2012.   

This is a real opportunity for MMO's that are currently sitting in the middle of the pack.  Players will still wander from game to game, and now is the time where an existing product, with most of the rough edges from launch already smoothed out, can potentially make a big impression.  Even if all of the things I've suggested come to pass, 2013 could be a good year on the balance if we come out the other side with a solid pool of games that are quietly getting the job done.

New Year's Resolutions for 2013

My annual New Year's Resolution post is usually lengthy but not that insightful - half of the items are short term goals that get done soon afterwards and the other half are more pie-in-the sky things that don't happen at all.  My year for 2012 can be summarized with two lines of facts:

• Prior to October: Level capped characters in seven different MMO's simultaneously, posting on the blog every 2-3 days (11-18 posts/month)
• Post-October: Level capped characters remain in only three MMO's due to expansions I have yet to catch up to, posting to the blog once or twice per week, +1 infant

I'm happy with this turn of events, but it does put realistic constraints on what I can aspire to in-game during the coming year.  A few resolutions, which are more qualitative than specific:

Work on what I have

2012 wasn't all bad when it came to trying new things.  I started and capped characters in STO and SWTOR, along with some very brief (often one-evening) visits to Aion, Tera, EQ1, and TSW.  That said, it was a tough year to carve out time for anything new, and that does not figure to change in 2013.

I currently have what I need (access and game time as appropriate) for content I have yet to use in WoW, LOTRO, DCUO, TSW, DDO, STO, and SWTOR.  I don't expect any of these titles to fold in 2013, but it really makes more sense to focus on my backlog at this point.  I'm fine with my budget where it currently sits, but it's pointless to collect more stuff that I don't have time to play - the best sale price is still a waste if I don't use the content.  

Learn when NOT to beat the business model

While my time is scarce, I do get enjoyment out of snagging a good bargain.  Sometimes, when the payoff is high enough, it can make sense to grind in-game to "beat the business model".  

For instance, according to SWTOR Spy's Cartel calculator, I have unlocked more than 10,000 Cartel Coins' worth of stuff by purchasing the relevant unlocks on the GTN for in-game credits.  This would have cost me $80 in the cash shop, while species and inventory unlocks I picked up for alts during my last month of subscription time could potentially have cost another $40.  I did spend a fair amount of extra time in game sending my companions on slicing missions and farming daily quests (which also awarded several high end pieces of gear for my main) to pay for all of these unlocks, but this was definitely a major payoff for my time.  

Even so, cash shops are a reality of the market today, and I should really make better use of them.  If an unlock is purely cosmetic, it makes sense to do without or set it aside as a reward for earning the credits in game.  When it comes to exp potions and other things that affect the rate of advancement, it's worth asking whether the game is worth playing if it's worth paying to play it less.  However, when an unlock actually impacts quality of life - e.g. not being able to harvest materials I encounter in the world because one of my crewskill slots is locked - it really makes more sense to pay a couple dollars and move on.  

Focus on my perspective

This blog will celebrate its 1000th post early next year and its fifth birthday in the spring.  While limited time has been the most immediate cause for my current drop in posts, the results are somewhat positive. 

I don't view reporting the news as one of this blog's strengths.  I will post immediate reactions sometimes, especially if I have an opinion I'm not seeing from other folks, but often the "breaking news" of the MMO world does not even come with enough detail to support in-depth analysis.  Because I know that most of my posts will not be timely, I'm free to spend most of my limited time working on more of the big picture, such as trends that tie recent developments into past experiences.  

I intentionally don't have a set format or schedule for the blog, because this is a hobby and I prefer flexibility to write what I want.  That the schedule happens to support the kind of posts that I like to write is a happy coincidence.

Thanks to all of my readers, best wishes, and a happy new year!  

2012 MMO Expenditures

I've been keeping detailed logs of my MMO spending for roughly two years now, and I elected to publish them for the first time last year.  My experience probably isn't typical, as I spent a total of $275 on eight different MMO's in 2012, where most people probably stick to a smaller number of games.  That said, two broad observations:

• Game time for specific two subscription titles - WoW and SWTOR (well, it was) - represents about half of my total ($125, counting the first $15 of the SWTOR box cost as payment for the first 30 days).  This number is higher than it could have been due to the annual pass.  Even so, my spending on these two games EACH nearly doubles the next highest item on my ledger.  
• Setting aside those two subscription payments (WoW's was technically discounted), I did not pay full price for anything that I purchased this year - I'd estimate that I paid about half of the asking price overall.  Some of these savings come from retailers looking to dump stock, but many of them were provided directly from the publishers.  It's not accurate to look at all of this as lost revenue for the studios - some of the lower priority titles would not have made the cut at full price.  Even so, sales are a reality of the business, and are going to be a factor for anyone looking to base their business model primarily on one-time buy-to-play transactions.  As the number of games I play increases, it is easier and easier to wait for the sale before pulling the trigger, especially if there is any reason to be concerned about quality/polish.  

And now for the full ledger.  My accounting practice is to bill purchases of content and cash store currency in the year they were paid for, but to bill game time in the year in which it is actually used.  Titles are listed in chronological order.

World of Warcraft: $80 (+$60?) (+$35 to 2013)
I wrote an annual pass post-mortem when the year of game time I purchased through that promotion lapsed.  The short form is that I don't regret the approximately $80 for ten months of game time that I used in 2012, but the $60 Diablo III purchase (which I'm not counting against my MMO budget because it isn't an MMO) that I made in order to get that deal was a bit of a fail.

One big difference between this and past expansion cycles was the early availability of holiday discounts on the brand new expansion.  Through holiday sales and promos, I was able to snag the Pandaria box and a 6o day time card with which to play it for $35. (I have yet to use these things, so I'm counting them for next year.)

Rift: $10.72
As a brief recap, I had paid for the box at launch last year, ended the included month at level 36 or so, and leveled the rest of the way to the game's cap using Trion's frequent free retrial weekends.  Just when I was thinking of coming back for a month, I ran into a firesale on game time cards - 90 days for less than a single month.  Perhaps they were afraid they'd be stuck with unsold inventory if the game went free to play?  In principle, I still have some time left, though I'd have to purchase the expansion - even if I did want to re-roll, I'd probably want access to the new souls.

Star Trek Online: $11.40
I went foraging for an old retail box of this game to snag one month's subscription time.  This is useful because you get to keep any additional storage granted by being a subscriber at each rank (10 levels) tier.  I also spent $5 on the smallest quantity of Cryptic points so I could purchase an early increase to my duty officer cap.

SWTOR: $70
I waited until patch 1.2, which was widely viewed as the patch that was going to finish all of the odds and ends that didn't get done in time for release.  As a reward for my patience, I got the account key direct from EA for $40 instead of the list price of $60.  (I also somehow qualified for the "loyalty" bonus minipet that was granted to current subscribers for sticking with the game during the early months, despite having shown up that week.)  I subbed up for an additional month to get my first character to the level cap, and subbed up again just prior to the free to play relaunch in order to take advantage of some of the grandfathered perks former subscribers get.

EQ2 AND DCUO: $20
I don't remember exactly why I chose to throw $20 at a station cash sale sometime around April/May.  Through a series of sales so aggressive that they forced all content and game time out of SOE's in-game stores for good, I ended up turning that $20 into the $40 Age of Discovery expansion and 6 months of subscription time in EQ2 (I forget the exact discount you get for six month subs, probably $75ish).

(I also snagged the three DCUO DLC packs I did not already own at the time of the "we are taking DLC out of the cash store because our marketing people have broken the payment model" final sale in August, but I think that was from the Station Cash leftover from last year.)

Setting aside the absurdity of how long it took SOE to notice this was going on, I'll be the first to admit that the status quo could not continue.  EQ2 may also have finally tweaked its payment model to the point where paying on a non-subscription basis is worthwhile.  That said, some of EQ2's recent expansions have been so thin that there really wasn't much more than a month's worth of entertainment that a solo player could carve out of them.  It's hard to justify $50-60 for an expansion box plus either subscription time or unlocks if I'm going to get so little time out of them compared to all the other titles on this list - no wonder Smedley wants to get out of the content creation business.

LOTRO: $43
I paid $8 for a small Turbine Point bundle to snag the barter wallet upgrade.  It is irritating that Turbine is so heavily focused on charging for fixes to longstanding design issues (in this case, their addiction to non-stacking character-bound token rewards), and I probably could have earned the Turbine points in game, but I decided solving this problem was worth the $8.

Then Turbine decided that the first expansion to player inventory since 2007 would be exclusive to the $70 Rohan expansion bundle for several months.  Fortunately, Turbine can be counted on to discount expansions aggressively, so I just waited a few weeks and got the bags and whistles edition for 50% off, i.e. less than what people paid for the regular edition at launch.  This bundle also included a fair number of Turbine points, which I will no doubt need to spend on unlocking basic UI improvements over the next year.

DDO: $25
Speaking of Turbine expansion discounts, I also snagged the DDO expansion for 50% off through a Steam sale.  Apparently I was lacking in patience, as Turbine slashed the price further down to 75% off for Black Friday.  I hadn't spent any real world money on this game since mid-2010 (albeit only playing the game sporadically during that window), I suppose a few extra bucks isn't the end of the world.

One could argue whether I actually needed this expansion in the first place, as I do not have any high level characters.  The one thing that I have gotten a fair amount of use out of is one of the bonus throw-ins: a greater tome of learning.  I generally don't favor paying for experience boosts, but this particular bonus actually changes the way that you play the game by adding a hefty bonus to each quest the first time you complete it (reset if you true reincarnate).  This effectively removes the requirement to repeat midlevel content for exp.  I'm happy to repeat DDO's content eventually, but I'd rather not do it immediately, and now I don't have to.

The Secret World: $15
I was poised to skip every single MMO that launched in 2012 until a last minute switch in payment model, followed by an Amazon sale offering the newly buy-to-play title for $15, made TSW too intriguing to pass up.  I had initially passed on this title as much due to my crowded schedule and a few rough edges during my very brief visit to the beta as to anything on the game's merits (such as its subscription model).

The game-changer with the buy-to-play switch is not the amount of money, but rather the amount of time I would need to invest immediately to determine whether the product is worth future subscription payments.  I've spent a few hours with the game so far and it does show some promise, especially as a secondary title.  I can't see how my one-time payment suddenly props up the game's finances, but I suppose it couldn't hurt?

Grand Total: $275 (not counting DIII)
Subtotal for Content/Currency Purchases: $123 (includes $25 of the $40 SWTOR box price)
Subtotal for Game Time: $152

Rift Expansion Sounds Like Guild Wars 2?

After hearing MMO Reporter's PAX Interview with Scott Hartsman, I'm struck by how his description of the leveling experience in the Rift expansion sounds like what I'm hearing others say about the leveling experience in Guild Wars 2.  Hartsman's declaration that MMO's should be about being able to play with all of your friends all of the time sounds like precisely what we've been hearing from ArenaNet. 

The Rift expansion will raise the level cap and add two new continents with solo quest content and a story quest arc.  However, Hartsman suggested that it would be more fun to do the other activities that focus more on exploration.  One example he gave was a quest alternative called "carnage" that does not require the intervention of a questgiver to get credit for killing mobs - a feature of Guild Wars 2 (and, as Tobold points out, something that Warhammer Online notoriously promised but largely failed to deliver).  Hartsman states that players will likely get the exp they need from completing one of the two continents, plus all of the side exploration and carnage bonuses and other activities.   

It's possible that Trion agrees with my speculation that GW2 may be a threat to their game due to some similar mechanics, and began planning a response well in advance of the competitor's launch.  If so, one potential downfall might be all of the currently existing content in the game.  Based on the interview it sounded like both continents were for the level 50+ crowd (though I'm not sure if this has been explicitly confirmed).  Trion's answer to GW2 cannot be gated behind 50 levels of old content if they want it to be effective. 

What I'm Not Currently Working On: Rift and Others

More stuff from my labor day roundup, this time featuring Rift and other stuff that I'm not playing now.  EQ2 should have happened before this, but I was working on the bonus exp weekend over there and I finished writing the below material first. 

Rift
Much as I like my level 50 Cleric on paper, I'm thinking I may have chosen horribly in terms of class.  Cleric melee is slow and plodding.  Cleric casting is powerful, but includes so much passive healing that the content feels trivial.  I actually enjoyed Purifier healing, but it seems you don't actually need that level of healing power, and could have gone for something paired with Justicar that does more damage instead.  Ironically, the game's relatively open soul system just leaves me wishing I could pick from ALL the souls, instead of merely a quarter of them.

If there is indeed a new parallel leveling path in the expansion, the best bet to hold my interest would be to re-roll with a different calling.  The downside would be fifty levels just to get back into the the new expansion endgame content, and there's limited evidence that I actually enjoy soloing in Rift that much.

Others
Ironically, my next major new release may be Borderlands 2.  I don't ordinarily play first person shooters, but I got a free copy for purchasing a new nVidia 660 Ti graphics card.  I may or may not like the game, but at no cost to me I think I'd at least give it a try to see how it looks with the new hardware.


Guild Wars 2 is a question mark - I like some of the things I've been hearing, but I wouldn't mind seeing how the game holds up as people get out of the newbie areas.  Access to the game's beta was unusually structured in terms of how much of the content players could see and how often they'd be allowed online, so I don't think we have any information to judge the game's longevity yet.  If I had time, this would be a tougher call, but I don't have time.  Ironically, being an MMO tourist makes it EASIER to sit out a major launch, because it isn't GW2 versus "same old" in one game, it's GW2 versus "same old" in eight different games, at least one of which I'm not going to be done with at any given time.  

Amongst other MMO's, in principle I can sign back onto Vanguard, but I don't know that the monthly fee was what was keeping me away from that game after trying it out last year anyway.  Allods remains vaguely on the list of major non-subscription MMO's I have yet to try.

Finally, the console roundup - I'm currently working on Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.  Other games on my radar if/when I replace the console due to broken disc drive include Infamous 2, Uncharted 3, FF XIII-2, and possibly the two remaining Assassin's Creed games that will be out by then. 

Most Threatened By GW2: Rift?

Wilhelm has an interesting post about current events in Rift that got me thinking about the week's major release. While Blizzard is making their traditional obligatory response to the Guild Wars 2 launch by rolling out a new patch tomorrow - there is a tradition to uphold, after all - I'm wondering that WoW may not be the game with the most to lose this week.  When you look at what distinguishes the remaining MMO's - and in particular the surviving subscription games - I'm much more worried for Rift. 

My personal experience in the world of Telara was that it was technically well executed but very dry solo.  Where the game shined was in groups, and I spent more time leveling with other people than I have in any other MMO before or since.  When I read over accounts from people who have stuck with the game, it seems that most have done so because their friends or their guilds have chosen Rift precisely because it is at their best when enjoyed in good company.

Now, in Guild Wars 2, you have a game that was supposedly developed under a philosophy where the first question was always how systems would affect players' ability to cooperate.  Servers and levels, probably the biggest barriers between players, are functionally gone.  The subscription fee is gone, and with it the constant financial incentive to quit the game.  Tapping mechanics that cause other players in the area to become competitors rather than collaborators are gone.  Open world events that encourage cooperation are in.  Ironically, Blizzard dodges a bullet by having a major competitor choose not to tackle WoW head-on, while Trion's model is most similar and most in the crosshairs. 

The Trion Response
Wilhelm says that his Rift server got pretty deserted during the GW2 prelaunch events, which is certainly anecdotal and probably a common experience around the MMO world this week.  However, the approach that the GW2 devs had planned was no surprise given the game's lengthy and relatively public development cycle.  Thus, Trion has had time to respond. 

Within a few months of GW2's anticipated release, Rift has added a popular auto-mentoring system (much like GW2's approach), removal of faction barriers to grouping (which GW2 intentionally never had), and a new world PVP system (albeit with some kinks) to join longstanding features like free instant server transfers and cross-server groups.  And yes, incidentally, a discount on a year-long subscription paired with an expansion - a move that Blizzard tried at the SWTOR launch, when it was widely regarded as a transparent attempt to lock in revenue before players canceled their subscriptions to go play a new game.  The fact that the competitor lacks a monthly fee can't help that math any. 

I don't expect Trion to fold anytime soon.  Even so, they may have as much riding on where the dust settles after this launch and their forthcoming expansion as any other game on the market. 

Rift To Remove Player Factions

Today, Trion announced plans to functionally all but remove factions from Rift.  As far as I can tell, all guilds, group content, instanced PVP (the random groupfinder already puts "mercenaries" into cross faction groups, so this is only a change to queueing), chat, and most other functional portions of the game will now be shared between factions.  Quest content, lore, and the two capitol cities will remain in place, presumably because re-writing all of the above would be a prohibitive amount of work. 

Trion is spinning this as the two factions recognizing the need to come together against common foes after having beaten four of the six elemental dragons.  This isn't actually new - we saw it in the game's first world event, back in March 2011, and frankly the faction system added so little to the game that I was questioning what purpose it served before launch even happened.

One area that may be kind of screwed up is non-instanced PVP.  Residents of PVP servers will be locked out of most of these features - good I suppose if you rolled on that ruleset because you really like it, but bad if you are being left behind for PVE purposes.  At least Trion offers free server transfers?  There could be some odd quirks in terms of faction spying, trash talking, etc, but some of these are already possible.  Trion also recently added a three-way PVP system where players choose to join one of the sides independent of their racial faction alignment, so I suppose they may intend for this system to replace the game's original lore. 

As always, tip of the hat to Trion for doing what they think is necessary, rather than allowing a situation they clearly felt needed to be corrected to continue - most developers would not consider doing something this dramatic to a launched game.  As long as the two factions are always fighting the same enemies anyway, there is very little value to the two faction system.  Since developers don't really have the time to develop completely separate content for their factions, this is a logical alternative. 

(Meanwhile, Blizzard is supposedly ramping the Alliance/Horde rivalry back up, other than the detail that the Horde's hated warchief is the final boss of the expansion.  The whole Galactic War thing kind of rules out merging the SWTOR factions.  I don't know that anyone is going to come scrambling to follow suit in retrofitting their games, but it will be interesting to see whether future developers stop doing two factions simply because that's how WoW did it.) 

Gameplay Trumps Business Model

The conventional wisdom in discussions about the future of the subscription MMO is that the continued success of World of Warcraft proves that players are willing to pay each and every month for a quality product.  I think the quality of the product and the experience ultimately trumps the business model, which is precisely WHY I'm not buying this theory. 

What if the truth is that every MMO that has succeeded under the subscription model has done so because that game - at the time - offered a compelling experience that was not available elsewhere?  Looking at MMO history through this model, have games succeeded DESPITE the monthly fee - because players had nowhere else to go to get that particular experience - and not because of it?  What portions of the conventional wisdom survive under this alternate model for events, and which fall by the wayside?   

Survivors of the Subscription Era
According to MMORPG.com's list of all games by business model, there simply aren't that many MMORPG's with a mandatory subscription fee left on the market.  Many are either abandoned veterans that aren't worth the money it would cost to relaunch them or newbies that have yet to prove they can last under a subscription model.  Setting aside the 9.1 million subscriber gorilla for a moment, let's look at the highlights:

• Eve Online: Poster child for this model, whether it's space piracy, corporation scheming, hardcore PVP, or fully player-driven wars for galactic domination, Eve always has offered something that no other game on the market attempts.
  
• Rift: Technically speaking, having a well-produced game that sets and meets achievable goals and therefore delivers the most consistent update schedule in the industry isn't part of the in-game experience. 
  
  What I'd suggest is unique - based on my experience playing the game and comparing it to the other quest-based MMO's on the market - is the focus on playing with other people.  Soloing in Rift is 100% feasible and supported, but it just feels flavorless compared to all the other solo quest MMO's.  By contrast, Trion has made it easier than any other game to join groups, and I've had more fun grouping - including while leveling and even healing PUG's - than any other recent MMO I've played. 
  
  (Incidentally, if I'm correct, Guild Wars 2 may be a bigger threat to Rift than WoW, since its content is closer to what Trion does well.) 
  
• Darkfall: I don't know exactly what their state of financial success is, as the game is currently charging a reduced monthly fee and no price to create an account.  Again, though, the game offers hardcore sandbox PVP of a kind that "mainstream" games run screaming from.
  
• FFXI: Another title where I'm not so informed about current success.  In the past, though, this game has been the rear-guard of numerous old school mechanics like harsh death penalties, lengthy travel, and grinding mobs to level, but without the PVP focus of other more sandbox-ish games.  (FFXIV is harder to gauge because it only began charging a fee recently.) 
  
• Warhammer Online: At the risk of kicking a game that's down, I'd suggest that this demonstrates the flipside of the model.  Things like solo quests, group dungeons, and instanced PVP warfronts would NOT have been enough to sustain a subscription game because there were alternatives with these features on the market in 2009.  The unique portion that they did attempt to provide - RVR - proved less than compelling due to incentive and population balance issues.  

I'm not going to try and rehash this analysis for the heyday of every MMO in history, but a cursory examination looks promising.  Everquest brought the Diku MUD model into 3D.   Dark Age of Camelot did the open PVP thing correctly, with a third faction to balance populations.  LOTRO, back when it was moderately successful while charging a mandatory subscription, combined solo-accessability with a far more immersive story experience than the competition had to offer in 2007.  Games that failed to catch on often have a reason - poor execution (e.g. Vanguard) or lack of differentiation (DCUO versus similar action-based gameplay in non-subscription console games, many of which are even online these days). 

What about WoW?
All of which brings us back to WoW and the conventional wisdom.  At its launch, WoW fit the model to a T - it was the only game on the market offering the virtual world experience to players who wanted to solo or otherwise shed the inflexibility inherent in past group-oriented MMO's.  Today, though, every game that launches is derided as a "WoW Clone".  What is this dinosaur still doing if a subscription game indeed cannot endure viable competition?

I would suggest that modern WoW offers two things that its contemporaries don't:

1. Critical Mass.  While diminished by years of attrition, Blizzard's game still has the largest playerbase.  The success of Facebook does not mean that any competing social network can succeed simply by fielding a better product because the userbase is part of the value of the product.  In some ways, Blizzard's game remains an easy consensus choice because they successfully support the major forms of gameplay - solo, group, raid, PVP - under one roof.
   
2. Production Values.  No other game has the luxury of two-year expansion cycles with multiple months of non-NDA'ed public testing.  Many MMO's struggle for the resources to support all the major playstyles and ultimately end up doing one or more poorly.  It's very possible to fault Blizzard's decisions, and the game does still have the occasional bug or rough edge, but it's hard to fault Blizzard's execution in comparison to the rest of the market.

Do these things really add up to a compelling game experience not available elsewhere?  Both have their downsides - the broad playerbase makes it harder to please everyone, while the long development cycles mean lengthy droughts with no new content.  These are certainly not as big of a revolution as introducing solo play to the genre - and perhaps that's a part of the game's slow but inexorable decline.  

Back to the big picture
If the bottom line is that the game, and not the business model, defines success, how have we arrived at the era of the free to play conversion?  Entry barriers and flexibility are almost certainly part of the story - it's hard to be so worthless not to be a bargain at some reduced price.  For some games, like DDO, it's possible to have such a low profile that the free to play relaunch is actually many gamers' first chance to make a first impression.  Moreover, in the early days of the F2P switchover perhaps payment model flexibility was unique enough to be a selling point.

Today, however, many of the games that appear to have failed to compete at the price-level of the monthly fee have all made the switch.  Still charging a fee may or may not be a dealbreaker, but it's harder to spin the lack of a fee as a selling point (especially if the "optional" fee is not so optional).  In that case, the real question going forward is: When will we see a major F2P relaunch fold?  Perhaps not so soon, since many of these titles are owned by larger developers who can keep the lights on relatively indefinitely, especially propped up with a cash shop.  Still, if I'm right this question will begin to loom large in the coming years, because there just aren't that many subscription titles left to fail to sustain the subscription model. 

The Free Side of the Force

In February, EA announced that SWTOR had sold 2+ million copies and retained 1.7 million subscribers.  Executives claimed that 500,000 subscribers was the break-even point, and that "At a million, we'd be making a profit but nothing worth writing home about".

In May, they announced that the number was down to 1.3 million.  This was followed by two rounds of layoffs - the first rumored to be 40% of the staff - and mergers of 90% of the game's servers.

On today's conference call, EA described the numbers as below 1 million but "well north of" the 500,000 subscriber break-even point.   It's not clear whether any writing home took place, but they did end the lengthy and unusually public discussion of the game's business model by announcing that it will go free to play sometime around November. 

The Path to the Free Side
Just from the public and not especially hard numbers, we now know that the game has failed to retain over half of its customers and has almost certainly set an all-time record for fastest MMO to lose a million customers (in fairness, partially due to how few games have sold a million copy).  If you make up numbers of 2.1 million total copies sold and 700K current subscribers - which are completely fake but plausible given what we've been told - you're looking at more like two thirds attrition within six months. 

In response, they will be converting the game to a payment model that the studio heads had previously said would not support the scope of their product. Let's be clear, the studio didn't go bankrupt and leave the state of Rhode Island on the hook for a nine-digit bill.  Setting aside the connotations of the word "failure", reasonable people can agree that this was not the outcome that EA had in mind when they ponied up a nine-digit sum of money to have this game made. 

As I wrote last week, the game may be a victim of its times.  Non-subscription payment models are lowering the cost of switching games and may be diminishing the appeal of the repetitive mechanics that previously sustained subscriptions.  It's certainly possible that large numbers of copies were sold to non-MMO players - fans of Star Wars and/or Bioware's single player efforts - who were predisposed against paying a monthly fee.  Even so, the numbers EA cited today are staggering.  If 40% of players who quit cited the subscription on the survey and over a million players have quit, you're talking about potentially hundreds of thousands of votes specifically against the subscription. 

(If memory serves, you're required to complete the survey in order to cancel your subscription, obviously the impact of the number would be greatly reduced if I'm wrong and this step is optional.)

Outlook
The details are sparse, but the forthcoming SWTOR free to play model appears to be the industry standard for F2P conversions not owned by Turbine - no fees for content or the level cap, with restrictions on quality of life for non-subscribers (races, currencies, etc) and possibly a complete lock-out from endgame group content.  If the game's problem was that players were finishing the game's single player story and then quitting, I fail to see how a payment model that does not charge until players have completed the single player story is going to work out for them. 

While I personally will most likely pay less for SWTOR under the new model, I'm not celebrating.  SWTOR is a quality product, albeit one that may have been especially ill-suited for the subscription model.  The quality and direction of the game's future development, with the reduced staff and revised business model, are likely to suffer. 

More generally, if you are a subscription MMO that has been around for at least a year and you are not named WoW, Eve, Rift, or possibly Final Fantasy (the jury remains out on XIV after it launched so poorly that Square had to decline to charge for an entire year), you're either trying to retrofit a new payment model or abandoned in maintenance mode.  I get that there is more to the current MMO scene than the catastrophes of Copernicus and Prime and the disappointments like SWTOR and DCUO.  Even so, as someone who has very much enjoyed and benefited from playing in an era of multiple high profile MMO's, I can't say that I'm liking the way things are going.

Musings At The Six-Fold Cap

In my post about re-acquiring the level cap in LOTRO, I failed to mention a minor milestone; I now have eight current max-level characters in six separate MMO's.  These are:

WoW: Greenwiz (85 Gnome Mage) and Greenraven (85 Tauren Warrior)
LOTRO: Allarond (75 Human Champion)
Rift: Telhamat (50 High Elf Cleric)
DCUO: Green Armadillo (Level 30 Sorcery Hero)
Star Trek Online: Green Armadillo (50 Federation Engineering) and Narilya (50 KDF Tactical)
SWTOR: Aldabaran (50 Cyborg Trooper)

Allarond just graduated from a shorter list of characters who had previously been max level prior to some previous cap increase.  The folks remaining on that list are:
EQ2: Lyriana (90 Fae Dirge - current cap is 92, increased in April 2012)
WoW: Greenhammer (70 Human Paladin, capped during TBC) and Cheerydeth (80 Gnome Death Knight, wiped at the end of the Wrath beta in 2008, but I count her for posterity's sake)

What I did mention was that I expect this achievement to be temporary.  LOTRO and WoW both have expansions out in September, Rift has an expansion slated for "fall", SWTOR plans to increase its cap in a patch "this year", and EQ2 (assuming I get back to the cap in the first place) will almost certainly have another expansion this year (though it is unknown whether the cap will rise again).  I'm half tempted to focus on EQ2 solely because it may be my last chance to claim seven different MMO's with capped characters for a while to come. 

I don't know that there's anything bad about my current plight - indeed, it's probably for the best that games are adding new content.  If anything, there may be upsides to having the cap increase more frequently but by smaller numbers of levels (2-5); some games have struggled to generate enough leveling content for larger increases, and many have suffered to come up with any significant changes in the way characters play at higher levels.  That said, yet another reason why I'm struggling to find time to try new games (though I'm certainly tempted).

A few random superlatives:

• Most time spent in groups while leveling: Rift, courtesy of public groups, and later an instance finder - I even healed
• Least time spent in group while leveling: SWTOR and STO - as far as I can recall, none of my capped characters in either game has ever joined a group for any reason (my low level sith warrior alt once took a blind invite from someone who needed a second warm body to collect a datacron).  
• Most time in endgame groups: hands down WoW  - worth noting that EQ2 is the only other MMO where I've spent significant amounts of time in endgame group content
• Most time in PVP: Other than a few weeks playing a LOTRO Warg back in 2007, WoW is probably the only entrant here.  
• Favorite Crafting: EQ2, best crafting-related content
• Favorite minigame/system not already named above: STO Duty Officers
• Favorite Story: LOTRO, they have an unfair advantage in the license, but they have executed well given the opportunity
• Least Memorable Lore: Rift.  Unfair I suppose since the competition is Azeroth, Norrath, and a bunch of licensed IP's, but nothing about Telara sticks out in my mind
• Best Races: I'm still inclined to tip the hat to EQ2 here with its selection of scaly and furry races, but I have to admit that WoW is doing about as well these days with the non-Tolkien races.  LOTRO has an excuse, but what does everyone else have to say for themselves?
• Lowest Mob Life Expectancy: WoW - even con mobs for your typical kill ten quest are lucky to survive for ten seconds each.  It's probably not a coincidence that WoW is the only game where I have a pure ranged character for a main - I'm willing to kite on special occasions, but I find it tedious if that's what I'm doing every mob.

In an unrelated story, MMOGC has a post up today along similar lines.

Blizzard's Response to Guild Wars

A few weeks back, I predicted that Blizzard would start the public testing of World of Warcraft's patch 5.0 around the August 28th launch of Guild Wars 2.  This seemed like a good bet given Blizzard's responses to Rift in 2010 and Warhammer in 2008.  For once, however, Blizzard actually moved faster than I expected.  Public testing went live last week, and the expansion now has a September 25th release date.  Working backwards, an August 21st launch date for patch 5.0, placing the new expansion's talent revamp and other features in players' hands before Guild Wars 2 can roll out (along with expansions in LOTRO and Rift), looks reasonably likely. 

I had a conversation with Spinks and Suicidal Zebra via Twitter about the release possibilities a few weeks ago.  I wonder if Blizzard felt they had to get the expansion out with non-zero time remaining in the annual passes of players (like myself) who signed up when the thing was first offered.  They never committed to doing so, but having a month of pre-expansion launch event and a month after the expansion arrives within that one-year window is a bit of a difference, since many of us would have paid for that time anyway.  Then again, perhaps the portion of the populace who are not annual pass subscribers - most likely the majority despite the surprisingly large number of annual subscribers - are the biggest flight risk.

Other than my lack of interest in Guild Wars 2, I suppose I'd be the kind of relatively inactive annual pass player that they might be targeting with this launch window.  I don't know that I would have changed plans based on the date, but I'll definitely to see how my characters fare with the new talent system.  As long as I have some Cataclysm-era stuff to wrap up anyway, there's no reason not to wait and combine that with test driving the new systems. 

Canada Day Resolutions For 2012

Another half year has gone by, and Canada's national holiday remains well positioned for a mid-year look at my New Year's Resolutions.  Let's see how things have gone.

WoW (Pre-Pandaria)

• Complete quests of Cataclysm: I'm still not finished with Hyjal, Twilight Highlands, or Firelands on my main - I tend to work on dailies first, and there are enough dailies that I haven't gotten around to these.
• Finish out armor set from 4.3 heroics
• Use the raid finder to kill Deathwing
• Cap out TBC-era dungeon reputations: Most of these rep's stalled out at Revered when the content was new.  Two expansions later, these heroics are quick and easy rep farming.

These have gone remarkable as predicted.  As of now, I have completed the quests of Hyjal and Twilight Highlands, I have beaten the raid finder, and five-man dungeons hold no more loot for me.  I have not yet completed the Firelands storyline, primarily because it's gated by daily quests.  I also have a way to go with both Therazane and Wildhammer factions.  Overall, if the sun sets on the Cataclysm era, I won't have many regrets in terms of goals.

Pandaria, on the other hand, seems poised to arrive no earlier than late August and possibly as late as October, with Blizzard's announcement that the expansion cinematic will be unveiled on August 16th.  Not exactly what I was hoping to hear, though I suppose I should have known better to hope that Blizzard could manage an expansion in a "mere" 20 months. Meanwhile, I suppose I might as well go on the record now and predict that the 5.0 PTR will hit within a few days of the 28 August Guild Wars 2 launch, since that's how Blizzard always does it. 


LOTRO

• Reach the new level cap on my main (currently 67 of 75)
• Don't feel obliged to "save" content for future level cap increases

LOTRO is an odd duck out this year.  I'm currently at level 70, halfway though the new levels for the Isengard expansion even though I'm only just barely into its content.  I would really like to finish the remaining content before the next expansion so that I'm not once again forced to choose between skipping high quality content and outleveling the new stuff.   Unfortunately, LOTRO never quite seems to make it to the top of my plate.  I plan to work on this one sometime over the summer.


Rift

• Finally reach the level cap
• Investigate the endgame

I did reach the level cap, but I continue to find the game's solo content (and especially the dailies) underwhelming.  The lore has failed to make any impression on me, and solo combat feels like it drags out - probably intentional so that the second and further players in a leveling group actually have something to do.  As an aside, I'd rate this game as probably the best out there if you're spending most of your time in a group (small or raid) of folks you know, but unfortunately that's not me.

I'd say that the monthly fee is what is holding me back, but I've actually got a time card in my back pocket and I haven't even been tempted to use it.  Perhaps with the new expansion?

EQ2

• Enjoy world events on my main without having to subscribe
• Try to complete current dungeon content
• Betray to the evil side to see content, collect houses, perhaps try the Troubadour

This entire heading was somewhat blindsided by the surprise decision to raise the level cap in April's game update.  As far as I can tell, this is the new content that wasn't ready in time to be included in the "optional" expansion last fall - it feels quite a bit like it was balanced for players who have access to "optional" mercenaries.  Fortunately, I was able to abuse the triple station cash + SC store sale loophole to pick up the expansion and six months worth of game time (a loophole they have finally closed, albeit with typical poor communication) for $20.  Sometime between now and November I'd like to reach the new cap and also betray over to the evil side to test drive troubadour (probably betraying back to good and Dirge before the gold time runs out). 


DCUO

• Gear my main up for DLC content
• Work on one or more alts to see the other storylines

After hitting the level cap, this game has largely fallen off my plate.  The focus of the game is grinding group content for gear, and, unlike most MMO's, SOE has thus far stuck with strict tiering requirements.  New DLC content continues to strictly require gear from the old instances - even the solo content in the DLC I paid for can't be accessed without grinding gear in PUGs that frankly don't want players like myself in their groups.  Oh well, at least I can spend my SC in SOE's other offerings.  

SWTOR

• Play one or more storylines

So far, so good, Trooper story complete, Sith Warrior in progress. I will almost certainly do the Agent story next, since that's a well-regarded plot that covers an additional class buff archetype, allows the Chiss race, and would also let me try a class that can heal.  I could hypothetically chart a course through all eight class stories, but I'm not inclined to go quickly, with new legacy options potentially opening up over time.

Star Trek Online

• "By the time the dust settles, there will probably be at least a dozen major MMO's I haven't played that originally launched as subscription games - I could literally try a different one every month for 2012."

I'm nowhere near a dozen, but I have one in Star Trek Online. Ironically, the main reason why I tried it when I did was because of an anniversary promo for an Odyssey-class cruiser that I eventually cashed in and christened the U.S. Faydwer.  I'm definitely spending much less time in game now, but there were enough unique things about this game that I'm glad I took the time to try it out.

Other MMO's
DDO is perennially in this category, because I'm still sitting just shy of level 8 on my highest level character.  Everyone gets a free respec as part of the new expansion, but there are also a fair number of things that got blown up - changes to hit and spell mechanics, with more changes to the entire enhancement system yet to come.  DDO is very unforgiving when it comes to respecs - for the most part they are cash store only - so I'm inclined to wait and see what happens with the enhancement revamp before I mess with any characters, new or old.

I've also spent about an evening each in Aion, EQ1, and the Secret World Beta.  I haven't really played Runes of Magic, in which I have a mid-level character and which now offers a new race with new classes.  I will probably try Mechwarrior Online when it goes live for the free-to-play masses. Vanguard is going free to play, though I didn't exactly stick with it when I paid for access last year. 

Beyond all of that, I hesitate to predict what other MMO's I may or may not try over the year.  I have a fair number of clients for free to play games that I have yet to try installed on my computer.  I'm not chomping at the bit to be first in line for either Secret World or Guild Wars 2.  The bottom line continues to be that any new game is really going to have to fight for more than a one night trial on my current schedule.

PS3
So far, I've finished off Assassin's Creed II, Arkham City (though I enjoyed this enough to try it again on the higher "new game plus" difficulty, which allows use of all the bat-gadgets from the beginning), and a chunk of the Tomb Raider trilogy.  The push for Uncharted 3... did not end so well.  Other games on my playlist include Infamous 2, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, followed by Revelations (and eventually followed by ACIII), and perhaps FFXIII-2.

PC Building
I did indeed build my first desktop gaming PC this winter.   Overall, it's been a pretty big success so far.  I am still running with an old graphics card salvaged from my old desktop, primarily because it doesn't seem to have any problems with any of the games I'm playing.  I'm in wait-and-see mode on the nVidia GTX 660/660Ti, which will supposedly blow the current mid-range cards out of the water - or at least drive their prices down dramatically, such that I could snag an upper-mid-range card.  I'd be in more of a hurry on this front except that I just am not finding that I need the increased performance on any games that I play. 

The Blog
I published 84 posts in the first half of the year, which continues a bit of a downward trend.  I haven't hit 15 posts in a month since February.  Part of that trend may be that I stuck with both STO and SWTOR beyond the points in either game where I have significant new things to say about them on a near-daily basis.  Part of it is longer posts like this one.  And part is life - a trend that I don't expect to change (in fact, quite the contrary).

In any case, thank you for reading, happy Canada Day to our neighbors in the True North, Strong and Free, and here's to the rest of the year!