Revisiting Games I Would F2P

Let’s take a stroll down memory lane, shall we? Among my list of games I would play if they were F2P, one just joined in on the fun, and the other will be there by fall. We are at 50% saturation… come on, WAR and Vanguard, you know you want to.

So, 15 months after making this statement, instead of “would I,” the question is “will I?”

The answer is “yes,” and “yes, but.”

I am quite looking forward to being able to pop back in to City of Heroes/Villains with my old “paid” characters; my husband and I had a nice thematic team going, and although I don’t foresee it becoming  our main, default log in each evening kind of game (though nothing really fits that bill at Chez Randomessa), we have plenty of good times ahead of us, I’m sure.

Age of Conan, I’m much less sure about. In the time since last year’s post, I have discovered I have an animosity toward a lot of MMO conventions, and Age of Conan skirts enough of them to significantly dampen its appeal to me. As I stated even then, once the Destiny quest content had petered out, there was little that really held my interest in Hyboria. Perhaps Mr. Randomessa and I will take our characters through the Gateway to Khitai just for the heckuvit. That’s more, at least, than we had before. And if we like it, I wouldn’t be opposed to purchasing the rest of Khitai for us to own and play on our own time!

Also on our desktops is an icon for Fallen Earth, just waiting for the gates to officially open. Mr. Randomessa and I like harvesting for craft materials something fierce… although sometimes we like the comments our characters make when we click on items they are not sufficiently skilled to harvest even more:

“Why’s all the good stuff always inside the rock?”

“Maybe later… when I’m not such a noob.”

My roster also consists of time spent in Wizard 101, on which I have happily and voluntarily spent some cash buying access to areas, and Champions Online, which I am still trying to wrap my head around and can’t quite come to a verdict on whether I enjoy it or think it “meh.”

Oh, but today…. today, we play Hellgate: Resurrection.

Advertisement

Read Full Post »

Games I would return to if they were F2P

I have tried out a number of MMOs, both paid and free to play, and I can’t say I’ve noticed any stark differences between the two styles as far as the fun factor is concerned. I’ve even subscribed to a few games, and/or bought longterm or lifetime subscriptions to others. But I am beginning to feel more strongly as time goes on that no one game can appeal to all of my gaming desires, so it is not reasonable for me to buy into one game and play it to the exclusion of all others. I just don’t want to have to pay subscriptions for all of them, when I play them so sporadically!

Currently I am playing Star Trek Online (year-long sub), Wizard 101 (free until I purchase more content), Aika (as further betas allow), and am trying to get back into Lord of the Rings Online (lifetime sub). Now, if I could continue to play any of the following without paying additional subscription fees, I would gladly pop back into:

• Warhammer Online: the thought of a free T1 experience was appealing to me until I discovered that only Empire vs. Chaos lands could be accessed. I would be back in a heartbeat if Mythic enabled me to, say, pay by the tier – if I could purchase T1 access and have access to all three lands forever (or even one fee per pairing; I would pay that, too!), with all of my characters. If they would add fees for access to T2 through 4 in the same way, I’d be all over that. They could take from DDO’s model in this way, such that anyone could obviously bypass the Tier For Fee option and just pay a full subscription for access to the whole game.
• Age of Conan: I loved the Tortage experience, but even so, I’m not that big a fan of repetition and after playing through the 1-20 game with all four archetypes, I feel I’ve exhausted that content. The addition of new content through the Rise of the Godslayer expansion has me really tempted to return and try running through with a member of the Khitai race, and really itching to try out the lands of Khitai for their contrast to the existing continents. But again, it would be really nice if I could buy this content. I would even be willing to pay extra on the price of the expansion if I could “own” access to the lands of Khitai. Heck, charge me $25 over the expansion box price and let me progress only through the lands of Khitai, stopping at level 40, but have access to that area forever.
• City of Heroes/Villains and Champions Online: My partner and I had a lot of fun with CoX, though, as many others have said, most of our time was spent in character creation and we never really made it past level 12 or so (though I have a level 21 character that I soloed with). Again, it seemed just a bit too much to maintain a subscription for the amount of time we were spending with the game, and feeling compelled to “get our money’s worth” on the subscription tended to make us feel a bit sick of the content early on (I doubt I would have felt the mission structure was as repetitive as I did if I only attempted one mission in a week, instead of trying to get in 4-5 per night). Champions Online was my solo game, and I had enough fun with it that I felt sad when I canceled my subscription after one month, for the aforementioned reason.
• Vanguard, Saga of Heroes: Now, here is a game that I feel would benefit from enabling permanent free access to the trial island. Between my better half and I, we couldn’t even make it to Adventuring level 10 in the two-week trial period, let alone in the other two spheres. I do have a concern that we game in too short of spurts to really make it far in a game of such sprawling landscapes and dungeons as Vanguard, but I would like to try, and would happily pay a one-time per-area fee for that opportunity.

Someone on the Massively forums said, in response to a player bemoaning the lack of American players’ ability to pay by the hour when playing games the way they do in Asia, that “if you play enough” the subscription fee is a bargain. Yes, it certainly is – if you play enough. Right now the only option with subscription games is to either play “enough,” overpay for sporadic gaming schedules, or not to play at all.

Read Full Post »

A Strange Thing Happened on the Way to Aika

I made a grave miscalculation in the flurry of F2P MMOs I downloaded while looking for some brief weeknight fun to fill the gap left by Mass Effect 2. I was on a breather from Aika, and decided to download Wizard101, which I played for a month or so upon release.

I had forgotten how much fun that game was, and how addicting I found it. Wizard101 had most of the elements in games that I look for:

• An epic storyline (fully voiced, no less) with an (gasp!) ending
• Interesting combat that is newbie-friendly but still allows for deeper strategy
• For-pay content is largely limited to pay-by-area and cosmetic items; most items are still available for in-game money
• Large degree of character customization
• Player housing
• Arena-based PvP

I originally stopped playing simply because I had already spent the initial batch of crowns to open up areas to Krokotopia, and was going to have to pay again to continue progressing. I decided to take a break since I didn’t really want to level up an alt and wasn’t ready to buy more crowns at the time. Since I last played (and upgraded my computer twice, losing the installation), Wizard101 has added mounts, crafting, grouping and group chat, and additional areas, so there was really nothing preventing me from re-installing. Well, nothing except for that niggling fear that there is something wrong with me for being a thirty-something without children who enjoys the game so much I lose whole evenings playing it.

I have been having much more fun than I expected to since my break from the game, leveling my alt character, a Myth wizard in contrast to my Life main. I have also created a Balance wizard that I plan to take through the game at a later date. I have not yet bought the additional crowns for access, but intend to do so, rather than paying the monthly sub.

I still hope to get to Lt. Commander and my new ship in STO this weekend, by hook or by crook – it has been more difficult than I anticipated to find even an uninterrupted hour to play in – but this is a different game for a different mood.

Read Full Post »