Free to play MMORPGs have a rather nasty reputation for being of poor quality, having poor customer service, and are often avoided by the majority of gamers due to these stigmas that the gaming community has put on F2P games. Are these stigmas justified?
Customer Service
The reputation of having poor customer service is generally true in over 90% of the F2P games, some lack any customer service whatsoever. Most have customer service, however, they take a very long to respond and generally give automated responses or unsatisfactory responses. I've played many F2P games and I've honestly only seen one F2P game with proper customer service, and that is Riot Games, creator of League of Legends. That is one company out of around 50 that I've encountered playing F2P games.
Quality of Gameplay
Most F2P developers use dirty tactics to rope people in. Pretty much 99% of F2P games lose their fun factor around halfway through the leveling process. There are exceptions to this of course, but most of those exceptions are ex-pay to play games such as Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online. The general tactic here is to bring people in, have them feel like the game is incredibly fun by offering nice starting areas with seemingly fun gameplay, then about halfway through the leveling process hit them with either a severe lack of quests or an obscene amount of experience that you need to gain to level up. This of course is not true for every single game but it is for at the very least 75% of them.
What does Free really mean?
Free doesn't really mean free, the company has to make money somehow and would be a terrible business tactic to make a F2P game without some sort of micro transaction shop. Unfortunately, the majority of F2P games favor the heavy spender, and for those heavy spenders the cost of being the top players in the world in their respective game could cost them well into the thousands of dollars range, there are some that even go well over that into the tens of thousands of dollars just to have all the best gear, pets, etc. To put this in perspective, take a free to play game such as Battle of the Immortals for an example:
Cost of a good pet: $80
Cost of upgrading that pet: ~$60-500 purely based on luck
Cost of putting skills on that pet that are top notch: $3,000
Cost of upgrading gear to the highest level: $1,000-10,000 purely based on luck
So you're probably thinking "Who in the world would pay this much?!?!?!". Well, if you log in to Battle of the Immortals and look at the Pet Leaderboard, all the top 100 or so pets cost this much. I didn't even count in a lot of the other things people spend their money on in that game.
Now, lets compare the lowest possible cost in Battle of the Immortals to SIX YEARS of a subscription to World of Warcraft. The lowest possible cost in BoI is $4,140 to remain competitive at top ranks. The cost of six years worth of subscription of WoW equals around $1,040 plus the original game and expansions equals around $1,200. On top of all of that, the majority of people play a F2P game for around 3 months, even the top players typically play for a year or two. So a year or two of BoI = 4x more than 6 years of subscription to World of Warcraft, which is often criticized for being pay to play.
The good thing is if you want to be mediocre at best, you can play these F2P games for completely free. I threw Battle of the Immortals under the bus here but I actually play the game and enjoy it. Sure, I'll never be top notch because I won't spend over $10 on a F2P game, but I am content with that when the game is fun to play, a lot of people aren't though and will spend $1,000 on a game they've played for a few months. If you are easily tempted with phat loots that you can get by simply entering in your credit card information, stay far away from most F2P games.
Are All F2P MMORPGs Really That Bad?
Although most F2P developers are money hungry and have expensive items that boost your character far above every non-payer, there are a few good ones that don't require any money whatsoever and their micro transactions consist of primarily cosmetic items/potions/exp boosts. Nothing to really break the game when someone spends $10,000 as mentioned above when talking about Battle of the Immortals.
Here are some examples of great F2P MMORPGs that don't have a high cost:
Vindictus - Fantastic game with a very cheap micro transaction shop that doesn't really have anything in it outside of cosmetic items or potions. It is better than most MMORPGs on the market and its completely free!
League of Legends - Extremely fun DotA type game. If you've never played Defense of the Ancients, Heroes of Newerth, or League of Legends before, you're really missing out on this great genre of hardcore skill-based player versus player combat. Nothing in the game requires money except for cosmetic items that alter your character's appearance, everything else can be gained through just playing games!
Maplestory - I know what you're thinking... "Maplestory, that game that is for 10 year olds?!?!" Yeah, but it is really not just for kids, it actually has a really fun combat system and is updated very regularly. I don't play it much anymore but when I used to, I had a blast. Maplestory is from the same developer that created Vindictus and has a similarly cheap micro transaction shop that doesn't offer anything game breaking, purely cosmetic.
Fiesta - I know this game is very cartoony and somewhat old, however, it is very regularly updated and is actually quite fun. The micro transaction shop is relatively cheap and only has cosmetic items/potions/exp cards. My only complaint here is that you have to pay to get a mount, which is fine since you don't necessarily need it, but eh, make your own judgement on it as to whether or not that bothers you.
Other great F2P MMORPGs that I suggest you check out. (note, these are broken by big spenders, but are still fun)
Battle of the Immortals - Yeah, you have to pay a ton of money to become one of the top players. It is still a very well made game and is incredibly fun. It is a Diablo style game that offers some incredible looking armor and some awesome events. The game is updated fairly rarely and the customer service is poor, so those are things to keep in mind as well.
Forsaken World - You can buy gold and whatnot with real money which is a giant red flag right there. Not to mention the severe lack of quests once you hit level 35+. Despite these problems it is actually an incredibly fun game that rivals World of Warcraft in quality, unfortunately the same can't be said about the customer service or the late-game content.
Summary
From a business's point of view, the free to play structure is like a dream come true. Two dying MMOs (Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online) that went free to play more than doubled their profits due to replacing their monthly subscription with a micro transaction shop.
Is this the future? I think so. The monthly subscription business model is a dying breed that probably won't be resurrected any time soon, until people see the truth behind these "free" to play MMORPGs at least. Since World of Warcraft no game has really profited much off of the monthly subscription model, so one can only assume that businesses around the world will be pursuing the vast amounts of money to be had from the F2P model.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Saturday, April 30, 2011
The current state of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm as of patch 4.1
When the third expansion for World of Warcraft was announced I was ecstatic, it sounded like leap in the right direction since Wrath of the Lich King left many hardcore players asking for more. Wrath was fantastic for casuals and offered laid back easy raids with easily obtainable gear, however, with only a few difficult bosses throughout the entire expansion the hardcore players were left bored with nothing to do most of the week after they cleared the content.
All of this caused an uproar to make the game more "hardcore" in Cataclysm. Did they succeed in doing that? Absolutely. Did they do it right? Absolutely not. Clearing content took quite a while for everyone except for the elite of the elite that were able to put the majority of their time into raiding until they were able to clear all of the content, some even raided for 10 hours a day.
So this is what everyone was asking for right? So what is the deal?!?
Raiding
The fights aren't actually "difficult" like they were in Vanilla and BC, they're just extremely punishing. The mechanics of "If you miss an interrupt, you wipe", "If you are a second or two late with your interrupt, you wipe", and many more cause it to be more of a hassle than just downing a difficult boss. For example:
Heroic Chimaeron- it is actually possible for a tank to die instantly with no way to stop it, you just have to hope they dodge/parry the attack. Though this happens fairly rarely, it's still a game design flaw. Throughout the attempts that we did up until we killed him on Heroic mode we wiped maybe 6-7 times out of the 30 or so total attempts due to this happening, out of a total of around 40 or so total attempts.
Heroic Maloriak - If you are a second late on interrupting Arcane Storm during the red phase, you wipe. This mechanic is just wrong, putting the fate of the raid solely on a couple of people in charge of interrupting a cast.
Heroic Atramedes - If you a second late on hitting the gong, guess what happens? Yeah, you wipe. In this case you are completely relying on ONE person to do their job perfectly. It is most certainly possible and a few guilds do it with no problem, but that isn't the point, the point is the mechanics are punishing and it makes the game feel like a job.
Nefarian Normal or Heroic - Having to have two interrupters per platform is just uncalled for. On 10 man it is especially hard because you not only have to rely on them to get the interrupts perfect, but, in most cases you have to adjust your group makeup in order to get an extra interrupter or two in. Even in 25 man, having to rely on 6 people to get their interrupts perfect is just uncalled for and causes frustration which eventually turns into slowly burning out.
Heroic Magmaw - You have to rely on people to get their chains on the spike perfectly, if they don't the tank will get one shot. This is especially difficult with a new bug that was introduced in 4.1 where it is currently very difficult to cast spells that require manual targeting. You also have to rely on your death knight to kite the parasites perfectly, which is another example of 24 people completely relying on one person to do their job perfectly.
So overall, on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give this raid tier a 6/10. I know this blog seems like I'm bashing it more than praising it, but I do enjoy some fights such as Heroic Halfus Wyrmbreaker among others. The major problem is the punishing mechanics, most of the fight designs are fantastic but are often overlooked due to the annoying mechanics. If a blizzard employee reads this, please note, annoying/frustrating/punishing mechanics may seem fun but they lead to a slow burnout due to it making the game feel like a job more so than a video game.
5-Man Dungeons
The 5 mans are actually very well made and have a much better design than those seen previously. I applaud Blizzard for this expansion's 5 mans so far because they look fantastic, have excellent fight designs, and are generally just the perfect difficulty. Besides some horrible pugs that I've been in, all of the organized groups have been a blast running and I'm not dreading running them on my alts like I did in Wrath. I hit 85 the first day Cataclysm came out and was geared for heroics before midnight, the first thing we did was hit Heroic Blackrock Caverns. It took us 2 hours to learn everything and go through the instance with our terrible gear, but it was an absolute blast.
So overall, on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give this expansion's dungeons a 9/10. The only bad part about them is the length in some is just too long (I'm looking at you, Deadmines).
Questing
Questing is just simply amazing in Cataclysm. My opinion is completely objective of course, but for instance, the quests in Twilight Highlands are simply amazing. Those of you that have completed the quest know what I'm talking about. The dwarf wedding had me cracking up for quite a while, and the cut scenes are well done with the very limited engine that they're working with. There are problems though, such as Vashj'ir. It sounds amazing on paper and was well executed but after the first 10 minutes of being underwater it just felt dull. Also, the cut scenes in Uldum happened far too often in completely unnecessary parts of the story. The revamped 1-60 zones are fantastic, I actually don't mind leveling 1-60 now. The quests are filled with hilarity and immersion (mostly) never seen before in any MMORPG.
So overall, on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give this expansion's questing a 9/10. Fantastic leveling areas with a few problems such as Uldum having far too many unnecessary cut scenes.
Player Versus Player (PvP)
The only new things that were introduced in PvP were two new Battlegrounds, Tol Barad, and Rated Battlegrounds. I really like the direction they are headed with PvP, however, going the right direction doesn't mean it is good. Rated Battlegrounds were most certainly needed and they provided, I believe that was a success for the most part, since quite a few people do not enjoy the arena environment. The problem here is there just isn't anything new, the 2 "new" battlegrounds didn't introduce really anything new. Tol Barad is completely broken, not as much as it once was, but it is still just plain bad/lazy design.
I'm not saying PvP is terrible in this expansion, but there just isn't anything to set it apart from PvP in the past, this has caused me and many others to quit PvP all together.
So overall, on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give this expansion's PvP content a 4/10. It is just all the same stuff that we've seen before, but now there are battlegrounds in which you can earn Conquest Points, which is about the only good thing I can say about this expansion's PvP.
Altoholics
Altoholics is a word used to describe a person who plays more than one or two characters. So what does the expansion offer us Altoholics? Not much really. The revamped 1-60 zones are amazing and a blast to level through, but then you hit level 60 and have to enter the Outlands with Northrend right behind it. The Outlands is incredibly dated in its quest design and should really be looked at by Blizzard in the very near future. The main problem for us Altoholics is the difficulty of pugging raids. Most pug raids just end in total failure after 2-3 bosses, unless you're on a server such as Illidan where they have regular successful pugs. Not being able to pug raids kind of defeats the purpose of having an alt, so my alt Rogue just PvPs while my alt Paladin fills in for healers when we need an extra. This is another source of burnout due to not being able to enjoy another character to its fullest.
So overall, on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give this expansion's available alt options a 4/10. Not being able to pug most raids is a killer for me, and PvP gets boring pretty quick. The only reason I gave this a 4 and not a 1 or 2 is because having an alt right now is more important than ever. I know this from personal experience. Our first Heroic Chimaeron kill involved me bringing my relatively undergeared Holy Paladin to tank heal because we were down a tank healer, and it helped us tremendously and allowed us to get the kill instead of banging our heads against the fight for a while longer.
Things to do outside of Raids
This has been a problem area for World of Warcraft for the majority of its lifetime. I log on to raid then I log off. Why? Because there is just nothing to do. I stay in vent and chat with guildmates, but, what do I have to gain from doing 5-mans or boring PvP in which I have to wait in a queue that takes 10-40 minutes? The dailies are very poorly designed with such a small reward that it is hardly noticeable for the time it takes to complete them. Archeology is just a RNG-fest, I have enough frustration with RNG already being a Fire Mage.
So overall, on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give this expansion's outside-of-raids activities a 1/10. Yeah, it is really just that boring outside of raids. One thing to note though, is that I have the majority of classes at or above level 80 (with 4 85s), so leveling alts may be an option for some, but not for me.
Summary
Here is a recap of the scores on the 1-10 scale that I have given World of Warcraft features in Cataclysm.
Raids: 6/10
5 Mans: 9/10
Questing: 9/10
PvP: 4/10
Alt Options: 4/10
Things to do outside of raids: 1/10
Overall: 33/60. Very slightly above average, but disappointing since in the past WoW has been amazing. I think they just kind of dropped the ball on this one.
My opinions are completely subjective and are not meant to be an attack on the game, or anything for that matter. Tell me what you think, do you agree? Disagree? It'll be great to hear some opinions on this matter.
All of this caused an uproar to make the game more "hardcore" in Cataclysm. Did they succeed in doing that? Absolutely. Did they do it right? Absolutely not. Clearing content took quite a while for everyone except for the elite of the elite that were able to put the majority of their time into raiding until they were able to clear all of the content, some even raided for 10 hours a day.
So this is what everyone was asking for right? So what is the deal?!?
Raiding
The fights aren't actually "difficult" like they were in Vanilla and BC, they're just extremely punishing. The mechanics of "If you miss an interrupt, you wipe", "If you are a second or two late with your interrupt, you wipe", and many more cause it to be more of a hassle than just downing a difficult boss. For example:
Heroic Chimaeron- it is actually possible for a tank to die instantly with no way to stop it, you just have to hope they dodge/parry the attack. Though this happens fairly rarely, it's still a game design flaw. Throughout the attempts that we did up until we killed him on Heroic mode we wiped maybe 6-7 times out of the 30 or so total attempts due to this happening, out of a total of around 40 or so total attempts.
Heroic Maloriak - If you are a second late on interrupting Arcane Storm during the red phase, you wipe. This mechanic is just wrong, putting the fate of the raid solely on a couple of people in charge of interrupting a cast.
Heroic Atramedes - If you a second late on hitting the gong, guess what happens? Yeah, you wipe. In this case you are completely relying on ONE person to do their job perfectly. It is most certainly possible and a few guilds do it with no problem, but that isn't the point, the point is the mechanics are punishing and it makes the game feel like a job.
Nefarian Normal or Heroic - Having to have two interrupters per platform is just uncalled for. On 10 man it is especially hard because you not only have to rely on them to get the interrupts perfect, but, in most cases you have to adjust your group makeup in order to get an extra interrupter or two in. Even in 25 man, having to rely on 6 people to get their interrupts perfect is just uncalled for and causes frustration which eventually turns into slowly burning out.
Heroic Magmaw - You have to rely on people to get their chains on the spike perfectly, if they don't the tank will get one shot. This is especially difficult with a new bug that was introduced in 4.1 where it is currently very difficult to cast spells that require manual targeting. You also have to rely on your death knight to kite the parasites perfectly, which is another example of 24 people completely relying on one person to do their job perfectly.
So overall, on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give this raid tier a 6/10. I know this blog seems like I'm bashing it more than praising it, but I do enjoy some fights such as Heroic Halfus Wyrmbreaker among others. The major problem is the punishing mechanics, most of the fight designs are fantastic but are often overlooked due to the annoying mechanics. If a blizzard employee reads this, please note, annoying/frustrating/punishing mechanics may seem fun but they lead to a slow burnout due to it making the game feel like a job more so than a video game.
5-Man Dungeons
The 5 mans are actually very well made and have a much better design than those seen previously. I applaud Blizzard for this expansion's 5 mans so far because they look fantastic, have excellent fight designs, and are generally just the perfect difficulty. Besides some horrible pugs that I've been in, all of the organized groups have been a blast running and I'm not dreading running them on my alts like I did in Wrath. I hit 85 the first day Cataclysm came out and was geared for heroics before midnight, the first thing we did was hit Heroic Blackrock Caverns. It took us 2 hours to learn everything and go through the instance with our terrible gear, but it was an absolute blast.
So overall, on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give this expansion's dungeons a 9/10. The only bad part about them is the length in some is just too long (I'm looking at you, Deadmines).
Questing
Questing is just simply amazing in Cataclysm. My opinion is completely objective of course, but for instance, the quests in Twilight Highlands are simply amazing. Those of you that have completed the quest know what I'm talking about. The dwarf wedding had me cracking up for quite a while, and the cut scenes are well done with the very limited engine that they're working with. There are problems though, such as Vashj'ir. It sounds amazing on paper and was well executed but after the first 10 minutes of being underwater it just felt dull. Also, the cut scenes in Uldum happened far too often in completely unnecessary parts of the story. The revamped 1-60 zones are fantastic, I actually don't mind leveling 1-60 now. The quests are filled with hilarity and immersion (mostly) never seen before in any MMORPG.
So overall, on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give this expansion's questing a 9/10. Fantastic leveling areas with a few problems such as Uldum having far too many unnecessary cut scenes.
Player Versus Player (PvP)
The only new things that were introduced in PvP were two new Battlegrounds, Tol Barad, and Rated Battlegrounds. I really like the direction they are headed with PvP, however, going the right direction doesn't mean it is good. Rated Battlegrounds were most certainly needed and they provided, I believe that was a success for the most part, since quite a few people do not enjoy the arena environment. The problem here is there just isn't anything new, the 2 "new" battlegrounds didn't introduce really anything new. Tol Barad is completely broken, not as much as it once was, but it is still just plain bad/lazy design.
I'm not saying PvP is terrible in this expansion, but there just isn't anything to set it apart from PvP in the past, this has caused me and many others to quit PvP all together.
So overall, on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give this expansion's PvP content a 4/10. It is just all the same stuff that we've seen before, but now there are battlegrounds in which you can earn Conquest Points, which is about the only good thing I can say about this expansion's PvP.
Altoholics
Altoholics is a word used to describe a person who plays more than one or two characters. So what does the expansion offer us Altoholics? Not much really. The revamped 1-60 zones are amazing and a blast to level through, but then you hit level 60 and have to enter the Outlands with Northrend right behind it. The Outlands is incredibly dated in its quest design and should really be looked at by Blizzard in the very near future. The main problem for us Altoholics is the difficulty of pugging raids. Most pug raids just end in total failure after 2-3 bosses, unless you're on a server such as Illidan where they have regular successful pugs. Not being able to pug raids kind of defeats the purpose of having an alt, so my alt Rogue just PvPs while my alt Paladin fills in for healers when we need an extra. This is another source of burnout due to not being able to enjoy another character to its fullest.
So overall, on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give this expansion's available alt options a 4/10. Not being able to pug most raids is a killer for me, and PvP gets boring pretty quick. The only reason I gave this a 4 and not a 1 or 2 is because having an alt right now is more important than ever. I know this from personal experience. Our first Heroic Chimaeron kill involved me bringing my relatively undergeared Holy Paladin to tank heal because we were down a tank healer, and it helped us tremendously and allowed us to get the kill instead of banging our heads against the fight for a while longer.
Things to do outside of Raids
This has been a problem area for World of Warcraft for the majority of its lifetime. I log on to raid then I log off. Why? Because there is just nothing to do. I stay in vent and chat with guildmates, but, what do I have to gain from doing 5-mans or boring PvP in which I have to wait in a queue that takes 10-40 minutes? The dailies are very poorly designed with such a small reward that it is hardly noticeable for the time it takes to complete them. Archeology is just a RNG-fest, I have enough frustration with RNG already being a Fire Mage.
So overall, on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give this expansion's outside-of-raids activities a 1/10. Yeah, it is really just that boring outside of raids. One thing to note though, is that I have the majority of classes at or above level 80 (with 4 85s), so leveling alts may be an option for some, but not for me.
Summary
Here is a recap of the scores on the 1-10 scale that I have given World of Warcraft features in Cataclysm.
Raids: 6/10
5 Mans: 9/10
Questing: 9/10
PvP: 4/10
Alt Options: 4/10
Things to do outside of raids: 1/10
Overall: 33/60. Very slightly above average, but disappointing since in the past WoW has been amazing. I think they just kind of dropped the ball on this one.
My opinions are completely subjective and are not meant to be an attack on the game, or anything for that matter. Tell me what you think, do you agree? Disagree? It'll be great to hear some opinions on this matter.
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