Welcome
to the 1,248th
edition
of Loading...
Loading... is the premier daily
MMORPG news, coverage, and
commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.
We gamers expect a lot from a AAA MMOG launch, and not without
good reason--if we're going to plunk down roughly $60 of our
hard-earned cash for a game, we want it to be polished and fun. But the
same financial realities that keep us pinching our gaming pennies
generally force MMOGs to rush to launch, leaving polish in the hands of
a too-short beta. What if big name developer could make
revenue
during a game's beta phase by adopting a free-to-play with
microtransactions model? Explore this topic in today's Loading..., Beta
What-ifs.
The Pulse
You vote with what you
view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the
result is the Ten Ton Pulse (
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/thepulse/" target="_blank">What
is The Pulse?).
Here
are today's top 5 Pulse results:
Biggest
movers today:
-
9/22
- Aion
(release date) - 10/8
- Cities
XL (release date) - 11/3
- Dragon
Age:
Origins (release date) - 11/10
- Final
Fantasy
XI Ultimate
Collection (release date) - 12/1
- LotRO:
Siege of Mirkwood (expansion) - 12/1
- EVE
Online: Dominion (expansion) -
12/2
- DOFUS
2.0 (update) - 12/15
- EverQuest:
Underfoot (expansion)
Releases
- 1/26
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2389">Mass
Effect 2
(release date) - 2/1
- Global
Agenda
(release date) -
2/2
size="-1">
- Star
Trek Online
(release date) - 2/16
- href="http://everquest2.station.sony.com/expansions/sentinelsfate/index.vm">EverQuest
2: Sentinel's Fate (expansion) - March
2010
- APB -
style="font-weight: bold;">Spring 2011
- Star Wars:
The Old
Republic
Loading... Daily
What do you expect from a MMOG? When you plunk down $50-60 (or more, if
youre the kind whos into collectors editions), install the client,
patch and fire up the game for the first time, what is it youre hoping
to find? You want that game to be fun, of course. You want the virtual
world to impress you. You likely also expect a high degree of polish,
from functional mechanics to classes that feel balanced and unbroken.
But, if youre like most gamers, youve become skeptical that any MMOG
will deliver these things at launch.
On our weekly conference call yesterday, the Ten Ton Hammer editorial
staff wandered off on a gaming-related tangent about player
expectations. Jeff Ethec Woleslagle noted that gamers used to be a
lot more tolerant of the work-in-progress nature of MMOGs back in the
pre-WoW era when there were only a few titles on the market. Back in
the days of Ultima Online and EverQuest, we put up with a lack of
polish. Most of us diligently reported bugs and were even somewhat less
likely to complain about them. We enjoyed the evolution of our chosen
game, and we felt as though we played a role in that evolution. We were
part of something.
These days, however, were a far more demanding lot. In the immortal
words of a Queen song, we want it all, and we want it now. Weve paid
good money (in a tight economy, no less) to buy the latest MMOG, and
that MMOG has 30 days to impress us and convince us to add a $15
subscription fee to our monthly expenses. If it fails to impress, well
move on--theres always another game on the horizon if the current one
doesnt deliver.
Jeff also pointed out that those with a penchant for free-to-play
games, particularly in Asian markets, dont seem to have a problem
enjoying MMOGs that are, lets face it, usually less robust than their
AAA cousins. Why is that? Is it just a different mindset altogether? Or
could it be that the lack of any significant monetary investments
allows players to lower their expectations regarding mechanics and
polish and just have fun? Does a bunch of gamers having fun engender
the sort of community that makes a game sticky, retaining players for
the long haul?
In that serendipitous, one-thing-leads-to-another way that thoughts
often move through my head, the overwhelming demand for
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto">Star Trek Online
beta (were out of our plethora of keys already, but you can still
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/79227">download the
client) got me to thinking about whether AAA MMOGs
could parlay their open betas into something free-to-play-esque. We
know that most games are rushed to launch due to financial
pressure--pay-to-play games dont make money until they start selling
boxes and subscriptions. But what would happen, I wondered, if a MMOG
launched a lengthy open beta complete with the sort of
microtransactions that fund the ongoing development of free-to-play
games? In other words, what if the big name developers could make money
while taking their sweet time to launch a polished pay-to-play version?
I think the biggest hurdle would be converting players to a
subscription-based model after theyve
experienced free-to-play content. (Maybe the folks at Turbine
could tell us how it's worked out for them. They successfully converted
Dungeons & Dragons Online to a free-to-play model with a
subscription option. I wonder how many free-to-play members have since
subscribed.) If you could help fuel the development of a AAA game by
paying for certain aspects of its open beta content via
microtransactions
would you? If you knew that buying points to purchase
that prestige class, or that special mount or pet, would fund a lengthy
beta, enabling the developers to launch a pay-to-play game that was
everything it promised to be, would you get out your credit card? And,
when it came time for that game to go pay-to-play, would you feel
invested enough to subscribe? Your involvement in the community would
likely play a huge role. If you were made to feel that you were part of
the development of something special, and if youd made friends and/or
joined a guild, you just might stick around.
The notion of a lengthy open beta funded by microtransactions came to
me late last night when I was desperately trying to get to sleep. Ive
had perhaps 4 hours of shut-eye tops, and only one large cup of coffee
so far today, so Ill readily admit that my idea is probably full of
holes. But I think its also full of possibilities. Head over to the
Loading
forum to tell me whether Ive got it all wrong, or whether
Im
on to something. While you do that, Ill be in pursuit of more
caffeine.
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day
From our href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=663">STO
News & Articles Discussion
Top
10 Things to Know About Star Trek Online
Star Trek Online's open beta, which kicked off yesterday (not without
the usual open beta hiccups), is the hot topic of the day. If you've
got your beta key in hand, what better way to fire up your warp engines
than to read up on 10 Things to Know about STO? Check out the href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/79092"> article
and then add your own thoughts href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=48922">here.
==============================
Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread
No epic quotes yet. href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=48922">Make
a statement!
==============================
Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums? href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us!
New and Exclusive Content Today at Ten Ton Hammer
3 new Ten Ton Hammer features today! 47 in January!
47 in 2010!
FEATURES & GUIDES
-
Star
Trek Online Beta Journal #4 - No Tank, Healer or DPS?
Star Trek Online
is officially out in the public arena for Open Beta. All of you who
have been ignoring the tweets, the forums, the Facebook updates and the
Ten Ton Hammer exclusives about the game better learn fast. Our latest
beta journal is here to help as this weeks blog will enlighten you on
the careers of Star Trek Online and how they match up with the more
traditional roles of Tanks, Healer, or DPS (aka the holy trinity). Read
on and get ready to beam aboard.
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/reviews/addons/spartan-ui">WoW
Spartan U.I. Addon Review
Spartan U.I. is an add-on developed for World of Warcraft
to free up
your screen and enhance the game's default GUI. It integrates with
Bartender 3, the popular action bar addon, and takes over the bottom
portion of your screen so that you can move all of your addons, bars,
etc. out of your gameplay area. David "Xerin" Piner has recently spent
some time playing with Spartan U.I. and has provided an extensive
review of this add-on. Should you rush out and download it or place it
on your U.I. /ignore list?
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aion/guides/crafting/armorsmithing_pt2">Aion
Armorsmithing 100-199
Crafting
grind in Aion got you down? We give you the rundown on how to make it
as painless as possible in our guide to Tier 2 of Armorsmithing!
Today's
Hottest Content
-
Star
Trek
Online href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/79046"> Q&A
with Al Rivera - All About Ships - Star
Trek Online Beta Journal #4 - No Tank, Healer or DPS? - Carved
in Stone
or Written in Pencil: Developers' New Year's Resolutions -
Star
Trek
Online href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/79051"> Ten
Ton Hammers Hands-On Beta Impressions -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/ddo/guides/warchanterbuild">
style="font-weight: bold;">Dungeons and Dragons Online:
New
Character Build The Warchanter -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/78752">Global
Agenda href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/78752">
Mission Types Interview with Exec. Producer Todd Harris -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/reviews/addons/spartan-ui">WoW
Spartan U.I. Addon Review -
WoW
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/79042"> - Creating
the Perfect
U.I. - The
Anatomy of
Fleets in EVE
Online - Dungeons
& Dragons Online:
Eberron Unlimited Review
Thanks
for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer
network!
- Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg
and the Ten Ton Hammer team
