Loading... PvP and F2P on the QT

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Loading... Who put these #$@#ing snakes in this @#@%ing newsletter?

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn't enough, we now show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

Age of Conan - 200 BPM
World of Warcraft - 57 BPM
Lord of the Rings Online - 28 BPM
EverQuest 2 - 25 BPM
Warhammer Online - 16 BPM
Lineage 2 - 15 BPM
Vanguard - 14 BPM
EVE Online - 14 BPM
Dungeons and Dragons Online - 11 BPM
Guild Wars - 10 BPM

GameSpy conducted a very interesting interview with Tom Chilton of Blizzard discussing the current World of Warcraft Arena Tournament. Here is a telling quote,

"The big objective is to build WoW into a viable eSports game platform. We feel like with the introduction of the arena team and the arena system, we've got a way to set ourselves up for competitive eSports. We've been pretty happy with how the system has been turning out, it's a very popular system within WoW. It's fostered a strong sense of competition and community within that. It's turned out as a real sub-game within the game."

How many MMOG developers think of turning their game into an eSport? I'd hazard a guess that the number is very low. What is also interesting is that although Tom has this to say,

"We don't really intend for the Arena Tournament realm to replace WoW. We do feel like the arena games are a game within the game, a meta-game of WoW. We don't necessarily want people to feel like WoW is no longer a game to them. "

The fact of the matter is that many players see the arena and battlegrounds at 70 as their reward for reaching the level cap. The original game is just a barrier to entry in front of the level 70 BGs and arenas. For others it's a barrier placed before the elder game raids. The first 69 levels have become an upstream swim for many players who are maxing out their second or third characters.

Those that reach 70 and begin to partake in the PvP run up against point sellers, sandbaggers and worse. Tom mentions that Blizzard are closing the loopholes that allow this kind of behaviour, but can they truly all be closed? 10 million players acting as the equivalent of water and flowing through the path of least resistance are always going to find ways to break the rules to their advantage or worse, find ways to exploit the game mechanics to simply annoy other players.

Our very own Byron "Messiah" Mudry posted a timely editorial today with some suggestions to fix the current turtlefest that we call Warsong Gulch where games can turn into stupefying matches of who can bore the other team into leaving the battleground first.

Is the 800 pound gorilla so large because it continually thinks outside of the box or can it think outside the box because it is so large? The risk of having a small percentage of your customers enjoy a certain aspect of your game is lessened when you have 10 million customers to appeal to. If you can entertain even a small percentage then you have in effect created a subgame that is larger than what your competitors deliver in their entirety. If 10% enjoy it and continue to pay you monthly to play then you just lengthened the lifespan of one million customers.

Funcom took the thinking box, crushed it, ripped the flaps off and then kicked what was left into the alley when they designed Age of Conan. More games are following their lead and lining up in the wake. CVG is reporting that Mortal Online will also be using the Unreal 3 Engine and real-time combat. If Age of Conan is as big a success as many believe that it will be I expect we will be inundated with clones of the combat system.

I also fully expect that we are going to see a flood of terrible free-to-play games hit the North American market. I hope for the sake of developers like Min Kim of Nexon (Mabinogi) and David Perry of Acclaim (2Moons) that their titles don't become tainted by the tsunami of unplayable sewage that is headed our way.

Fortunately for us, there is a barrier to entry as large as the Great Wall of China (see what I did there?) set before developers who bring in poorly localized F2P games. North American retailers like Target, 7-Eleven and the other convenience chains are unlikely to stock prepaid time cards for unproven companies. Proven commodities like Nexon and Acclaim however can and have created an enormous revenue stream from players who don't own credit cards. GamaSutra has an excellent interview with Min Kim about Maple Story and localization in general.

PvP, F2P, it's just you and me. I rambled, now it's your turn. The The Loading... forums await you.

Do you feel the need to contact me personally with naughty pictures or derogatory comments? Here's my E-mail.

11 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 127 in April! 879 in 2008!

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today

Images/Video

Op/Eds

Game Lore

EverQuest 2: Lore of the Plane of Torment

Developer's Journal

Pirates of the Burning Sea: 1.3 Mission Updates

Previews

Interviews

Magic World Online: Product Director Kane Hao

Guides

Hot Content - Or, what I took a fancy to

Real World News [Headlines and Taglines compliments of Phil Comeau]

Human leg found on beach

'A tiger, in Africa?' . . . 'Perhaps it escaped from a zoo.'
Boy survives a butter knife in the head

I
Can't Believe It's Not Fatal!
Online Lesbian Sperm Bank Owner Gets 16 Months for Fraud

Will likely be forced to take deposits in prison

Thanks as always for visiting TenTonHammer.com. Thanks to Phil Comeau for doing the heavy lifting with the links!

- John "Boomjack" Hoskin and the Ten Ton Hammer Team

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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