DDO (Dungeons & Dragons Online) sent emails around today to advertise their Closed Beta for their new "Unlimited" release later in the year. It was sent to subscribers who had been playing prior to January 1st 2009.
I read up on the concept and what was being proposed and was fairly excited to actually try out the new Beta, but when I loaded up the download manager, I discovered it would take a 6.6gb download. That is nearly 10% of my monthly quota, not to mention with my speed of connection, it would take several days of downloading to obtain. Goodbye Beta.
DDO Unlimited is their new business model as they will shift from a 100% subscriber base to a "F2P" or free-to-play model, that many asian MMORPG's utilise. These are quite successful and they still earn their money through micro-managed monetary transactions where people pay for what they use and want. The F2P players will get limited adventures available to them, restricted banking and in-game mail options, and restricted character generation and slots available. To obtain the additional character slots, races, classes and adventures, they can purchase them with "Turbine Points". These points can be purchased directly with money through the website or in-game (not sure how it is set up yet) and points can also be earned through in-game activity like milestones in favour points (you earn favour points for the first successful completion of each quest on each difficulty).
This will hopefully open up the player numbers and attract people in, and hopefully for them, a percentage of these people will pay the subscription to be "VIP" status. Those who are already paying a subscription have the option of continuing to pay and gaining VIP titles, or to cancel their subscriptions to drop to the F2P status. If you drop to F2P, your account will reflect that, and when you first log in, you must decide which 2 characters you want available, and then purchase using Turbine Points to unlock the rest of your slots with characters in them etc.
It is an interesting move. I think it will help generate more interest and people can play the basics permanently without paying if they want. Those who then want more of the experience will pay for it and it really then is a user-pay system. I don't mind paying my subscription since I have a special 6-monthly payment plan of $9.95/month instead of the standard $14.95 a month, and quite frankly, I spend a heck of a lot more than that on other things that don't provide me a constant source of both entertainment and social activity.
So, while I won't be playing Beta, I will continue to play DDO, and try and get my characters to the new level 20 cap once it comes out. Oh, and the newest class to be released in the Unlimited release will be Favoured Soul. It is basically a Sorcerer version of Clerics, i.e. limited spell memorisation with faster spell casting and spell points, with other pros and cons. I know I have enough junk newbie characters I can scrap to make one when the time comes lol.
Should be interesting to see entire hordes of Favoured Souls running around :P
I read up on the concept and what was being proposed and was fairly excited to actually try out the new Beta, but when I loaded up the download manager, I discovered it would take a 6.6gb download. That is nearly 10% of my monthly quota, not to mention with my speed of connection, it would take several days of downloading to obtain. Goodbye Beta.
DDO Unlimited is their new business model as they will shift from a 100% subscriber base to a "F2P" or free-to-play model, that many asian MMORPG's utilise. These are quite successful and they still earn their money through micro-managed monetary transactions where people pay for what they use and want. The F2P players will get limited adventures available to them, restricted banking and in-game mail options, and restricted character generation and slots available. To obtain the additional character slots, races, classes and adventures, they can purchase them with "Turbine Points". These points can be purchased directly with money through the website or in-game (not sure how it is set up yet) and points can also be earned through in-game activity like milestones in favour points (you earn favour points for the first successful completion of each quest on each difficulty).
This will hopefully open up the player numbers and attract people in, and hopefully for them, a percentage of these people will pay the subscription to be "VIP" status. Those who are already paying a subscription have the option of continuing to pay and gaining VIP titles, or to cancel their subscriptions to drop to the F2P status. If you drop to F2P, your account will reflect that, and when you first log in, you must decide which 2 characters you want available, and then purchase using Turbine Points to unlock the rest of your slots with characters in them etc.
It is an interesting move. I think it will help generate more interest and people can play the basics permanently without paying if they want. Those who then want more of the experience will pay for it and it really then is a user-pay system. I don't mind paying my subscription since I have a special 6-monthly payment plan of $9.95/month instead of the standard $14.95 a month, and quite frankly, I spend a heck of a lot more than that on other things that don't provide me a constant source of both entertainment and social activity.
So, while I won't be playing Beta, I will continue to play DDO, and try and get my characters to the new level 20 cap once it comes out. Oh, and the newest class to be released in the Unlimited release will be Favoured Soul. It is basically a Sorcerer version of Clerics, i.e. limited spell memorisation with faster spell casting and spell points, with other pros and cons. I know I have enough junk newbie characters I can scrap to make one when the time comes lol.
Should be interesting to see entire hordes of Favoured Souls running around :P
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